


Unending Nonsense

by OpensUp4Nobody



Category: One Piece
Genre: Adventure, Humor, M/M, Romance, proably a lot of silliness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-04-03 09:23:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 56,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4095559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpensUp4Nobody/pseuds/OpensUp4Nobody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short tales and excerpts of things that may become actual full fledged stories in the future. Above all, most of it is nonsense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Afterlife

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, guys, here's the deal. I'm doing this because I'm afraid that when I go off to college in the fall I'll either lose interest in writing, or I won't have time for it anymore. Thus, I'm doing this to preserve my ideas until I can expand on them later and turn them into actual full length stories. I just didn't what to forget about them. So, this is basically just me being neurotic, I tend to do that. 
> 
> Next, I cannot stand one shot collections. I just can't read them, it hurts my brain, I don't like reading anything under 10k words. That said, it kills me a little bit inside that I'm doing this, but I'm doing it anyway. So, when I say these are short stories I probably mean at least 5k or more for each one. At least the ones that I've actually thought out, some might just be nonsense. So, yeah. 
> 
> Finally, while I'm mostly doing this to unload some ideas I would also love to accept any prompts you might have. Although, I warn you, there is a possibility that I will twist your words into something fucking stupid XD but yeah, prompts are welcome and will be done as quickly as possible. So, I think that's it.... Yeah :) ugh, this is the least prepared thing ever, so don't expect scheduled updates -_- was this a good choice? Fuck it, I don't care. 
> 
> Idea: Weird idea of what happens after you die.

Sanji gasped, his lungs heaving for the air his body so desperately lacked. He couldn't think, he only kept sucking down air like a landed fish. He had the strangest feeling now, it was like waking up from a dream that had been far too real. Seconds before, his head was being held deep underwater by the force of a storm born current and now he was on land, completely dry. That wasn't right. 

He took a moment to calm down, his diaphragm still working at double speed, even though he was no longer drowning. After a few minutes he forced his eyes open and saw a dull, gray sky above his head. The clouds above him turned lazily around each other, swirling like a sea of vapor. That was very strange, before it had been dark out. The night was clouded over menacingly, this sky felt heavy but not angry. It was building, this was like the start of a thunderstorm in the middle of the day. The air held a sort of low tension and an electric feel. 

His breathing had slowed to an almost normal speed, but it caught in his throat when he realized that he was nowhere near where he thought he should be, it was defiantly no where near anywhere he even knew of in his area. Before he had been in the ocean, miles from land, being battered by a storm. The winds were high and the sea was angry. He was smart enough to know that he shouldn't be out in that sort of weather, but it wasn't his idea to go out there in the first place. 

Now, he forced himself to look around. He appeared to be in the middle of a desert, a strangely cold desert. Under the ominous gray sky was a sea of tan sand. Even back on land, he lived in Massachusetts, not exactly a desert biom. Sanji sat up, suddenly alarmed. Where the fuck was he?

He shivered slightly as a cool breeze blew over the sand, kicking up particles into the air. It was a good thing he wasn't wet, at least. He didn't want to be sand crusted. He shriveled again, it wasn't freezing in this place, but it was cold enough to make Sanji want a coat, especially when the wind decided to pick up. 

Straining his eyes, he couldn't see anything for miles, he had gone from a literal sea into a sea of sand with no memory of the transition. What was he supposed to think about that? Had he been drugged and kidnapped? He didn't feel like he had, then again he wasn't sure what that would feel like. Was he dreaming? He didn't feel like he was dreaming. Had he lost his mind? Possible, but he really hoped not. Maybe he was dead. That would in a way make a lot of sense. He remember taking in huge gulps of water while he was being crushed by the relentless waves, he thought he was going to drown. He had gone unconscious, maybe he really had died and now he was in this stupid desert by himself, to wander around for eternity. Maybe this was hell or limbo or some shit like that. His eternal punishment for being a shitty person. Well, fuck whatever being decided to put him there in the first place. He half heartedly flipped off the sky, hoping that whatever god or goddess was up there understood how much he didn't believe in him or her. 

He forced himself to stand, his limbs shanking with the effort. He felt almost too sore to move, but he did anyway. Standing didn't offer him any insight to where the fuck he was. When he tried to start walking, he stumbled and got a face full of cold sand. Cursing, he got to his feet again and began to climb one of the large sand drifts to his side. At the top he could see a massive expanse of nothingness. Great, that wasn't helpful at all. 

He relaxed his weak limbs for a moment to stare blankly at the horizon. What the hell did he do now? He didn't know where he was or what he should be doing, where he should go from here. He felt that horrible mixture of panic and defeat, the sort that came with something important being lost forever. Although, this time he expected that it was his life he had lost, along with everything else he ever owned ever, excluding the clothes he was wearing. He hadn't been wearing this outfit when he was drowning, oddly enough, but right now that wasn't the main concern. 

He wasn't sure how long he laid there, but it felt like a very long time. Suddenly, the wind picked up again, blowing a whole layer of sand up into the air. Sanji shielded his eyes from the tiny particles when they hit his skin like needles. When he opened his eyes there was a man standing in the trough between his sand dune and the next one. He was facing away, but Sanji could see that he was wearing traditionally Japanese clothing. His haori and hakama shifted in the breeze, damn this new guy for looking so cool and mysterious. 

The man seemed to throw a mini fit, kicking angrily at the sand before he started looking around, which was when he spotted Sanji. He was of Asian descent, but his hair was strangely green. His left ear was pierced in three places and his forehead was wide. His face was not unattractive, but he had an unfriendly scowl plastered over top of it. 

"Where the hell did you come from?" the man asked, shouting over the wind. He had an accent in between being light and heavy. 

Before relying, Sanji rolled over the top if the dune and slid down the other side to where the man was standing, it made him feel like an awesome spy. "Just over that dune," he said, "Where is this?"

The man looked surprised, giving him a strange look. "You're new, no one's ever spawned here before."

Sanji a brow furrowed, "What are you taking about?"

"It's a video game thing Franky told me about. You spawn there when you die," the man said, "I don't get it, but apparently it makes sense when you've played games."

"What?" Sanji was lost. 

The man groaned, "Okay, bare with me here, you are dead," he said, pointing to the center of Sanji's chest with a scowl, annoyed that he was going to have to be the one to explain this shit. 

Sanji sighed, "Fuck, I knew it. God dammit, I had so much more to live for," he said angrily. 

The man raised an eyebrow, "Most people try to deny it at first."

"Yeah, well, that's kind of stupid because you're only confirming what I already thought," Sanji huffed, "So, what exactly is this place then?"

He shrugged, "Hell if I know, people just come here when they die."

"Come here and what?" Sanji scoffed, "Just wander around in the desert? That sounds like a pretty shitty existence. If that's the deal I'm just going to dig myself a sand hole and become a mole for the rest of existence. 

The man shrugged, "I won't stop you. Sometime people just wander around, but most people actually try to make it through the tunnel."

"What the fuck is the tunnel?" He was imagining a giant hamster tube sticking up into the sky. That probably not what this guy was talking about. 

"It's a big tunnel as far south as you can go, people who go in there don't come out," he said it like it was a huge mental weight to have to explain this to someone as stupid as this blond idiot. 

"Weird. I would ask what happens to them, but you obviously don't know," Sanji trailed off, then remembered that he'd actually forgotten his manners, "Oh, yeah, I'm Sanji, what's your name?"

"Zoro," Zoro replied, scrutinizing the blond, "What year are you from, there's no day night cycle here, so I can't judge the days and I forget the years."

"I'm from Massachusetts, May 9, 2015. When are you from?" This was very strange. 

"September 1, 1923, Yokohama, Japan. I died in the great Kanto earthquake, I was crushed by a fallen building," he recited robotically. 

"And exactly how painful was that?"

"Very, I was alive for five hours after it happened and died after they got me out."

"Fuck, that sucks," was all that Sanji could manage. How did you provide consolation for something like that? He fucking died after all and a long time ago at that. "Holy fuck, you're like," he paused to do the math, "Like one hundred and eighteen years old!"

"One hundred and nineteen," Zoro corrected him. 

"It's nice to know that I won't be aging anytime soon." His vanity liked that very much

"Nope, I will be forever twenty seven and you'll never grow up to be a man," he smirked. 

"What was that, moss head?"

"I think I just called you a prepubescent little boy, curly brow."

"I'll make you eat those words," Sanji promised before realizing something. "Does this mean I'll never be able to grow a majestic beard?" he asked, worried for his facial hair. What if beards didn't grow in this place?

"I'm going to say yes just so I can save this dimension from that horrifying image," Zoro said, "Anyway, this has been fun but I have places to be," he turned on his heels, his zori weren't quite so ill equip for this sand as Sanji's nice dress shoes. 

"Hang on," Sanji exclaimed, following after him, "I still want to know things, don't just leave!"

Zoro's scowl deepened, "Yeah, well I don't have time to stay here and chat with you, the city is two days of walking away and I have to get back to my friends."

"Then I'll walk with you," Sanji proposed, coming up next to Zoro to walk with him. 

"No," Zoro shoved him lightly, "I'm not going to be followed around by some new guy, I'm an old man, dammit, I don't have time for your bullshit."

"Too fucking bad, I'm going with you so deal with it," Sanji said, stomping after him. 

"No, leave me the fuck alone," Zoro groaned. 

"So, what's the deal then?" Sanji ignored his obvious irritation, "Why are we wearing clothes when we're dead? I mean, it's not like our clothes died with us. It doesn't make sense"

"No, from what I know, you just kind of show up in the form you think of yourself in," he forced the words out like he was going through some horribly tedious labor. 

"Does that mean people with body dysmorphic disorder show up all fucked up?" Sanji asked. 

"No, it's just-" Zoro faltered, "I don't know, that's just what happens, okay? I don't make the rules, okay?"

"Well, you've been here for like ninety two years, I would have thought you'd have figured it out by now," Sanji said, turning up his nose. 

"Shut up."

"So, do I have to eat and drink still?" Sanji wondered, half hoping that he could still stomach food. It would be pretty inconvenient seeing as they were in the middle of the desert, but he didn't think he could survive without being able to eat food. It was part of who he was as a chef. 

Zoro snorted, "Oh, yeah, if you don't eat you'll starve and if you don't drink you'll die of thirst. It's a real bitch."

"Fantastic, what is there to eat in the middle of a desert?" It didn't look like there would be much, he could only see a few scrawny bushes and he didn't imagine there were very many animals out here. 

"Roots mostly, there isn't much out here," he shrugged, "We have a difficult death spot because it's so far from the nearest city and there isn't a stream along the way, but there are plant roots to eat. You don't have to worry about anything making you sick unless it's actually poisonous because there aren't any pathogens here."

"That's handy," Sanji nodded. "And if I die I'll just show up over there again?" he pointed toward the dune they were walking away from. 

"Yep," Zoro nodded. 

"Why do I feel like that's going to happen a lot?"

"Because people are assholes."

"And you just died in order to get here," Sanji said, running his eyes over the Japanese man like he was examining him for injury. 

Zoro scowled, "Yes." Apparently, dying must have insulted him somehow. 

"How did that happen?" 

"Some fucking coward shot me in the throat with an arrow." He lifted a hand to his throat as he spoke. 

"Why?"

"Probably just because I was there."

"Does that happen often?"

"Lots of shit happens, everyone who dies ends up here. Everyone, the good and the bad, and people do some crazy shit when they can't really die. That goes double for people who spawn inside or close to the cities. The city is a fucking horrible place. You should see how bad famous historic people get it though. Well, usually it either goes really really bad or really really good for them, it's a bit of a gamble."

"Then why are we going to the city if it's so awful?" Sanji asked. 

"I'm going there because when one of us dies we meet up there, so we can go hide out in our spot and fuck around," Zoro grumbled. 

"Does it hurt a lot dying?" the blond asked. 

"You died once, you tell me."

"I guess it was terrifying and painful, I wouldn't want to do it again," the chef grimaced. 

"Then keep your guard up, or I might reach over and snap your stupid pencil neck, you fucking ostrich."

Sanji ignored that last comment, he would take the chance that Zoro had enough honor not to snap his neck while his back was turned, although he had no way of knowing for sure. "Aren't you going to ask how I died?"

"No, I don't care." He had heard far too many stories to give much of a shit anymore. 

"Rude," Sanji pouted, but he kept talking anyway, "I was kidnapped and tied up in a little dingy and abandoned in the middle of the fucking ocean until a storm came and I drowned."

Zoro only seemed half interested, he had been expecting a car crash. Tons of people died in car crashes. "Why did they kidnap you?"

"Because a bunch of thugs were trying to take my fucking restaurant away from me and I wasn't about to let that happen. Aw fuck, now they're going to fucking take All Blue. God dammit!" He kicked the sand angrily. 

"Why would they want your shitty restaurant?"

"Because it's a prime piece of real estate, also because I beat up their boss and he got fucking pissed." It wasn't much of a fight. 

"Murder victims always think they're so cool," Zoro scowled, "Don't dwell on life, forget about your restaurant, you're going to need to focus all your attention on death if you don't want something horrible to happen to you."

"What sort of horrible?" Sanji's eyes narrowed. 

"Any sort, there are murderers, serial killers, rapists, and all sorts of horrible people who would love to get their hands on you. You better learn to defend yourself fast or else."

"Are you saying I would be raped? You are aren't you? Is it because of my face? Damn my beautiful face."

"I also said you could be murdered by a serial killer, I don't know why you fixated on being raped."

"Because I'm face makes me insecure about my masculinity," Sanji said under his breath. 

"What?"

"What?"

Zoro gave him a very strange look. "As I was saying, you have to look out for everything."

"I can already defend myself," Sanji huffed indignantly. 

"Oh, yeah, a skinny thing like you, I'd like to see you try," Zoro scoffed. 

"Bring it, bastard," Sanji challenged, immediately he lifted a leg and kicked at Zoro's head, missing as the moss hear dodged out of the way. 

For the first time he actually seemed fully interested in the blond. He blocked with his arm as the second kick came. Blow after blow, Zoro managed to block three fourths of the attacks and landed several of his own, even punching Sanji once in the stomach. 

The fighting was not ideal on the sand but it was enjoyable none the less, good for getting out some of the frustration of being dead. After a while they called a truce in order to not waste anymore energy than necessary. 

"You're actually not total shit," Zoro said with a smirk. 

Sanji smirked back, "You aren't either, but I feel like it's unfair because you've had ninety two years to train."

Zoro rolled his eyes, "I was going easy and all the progress you build in increasing muscle mass disappears once you die and come back."

"That fucking sucks."

"Yeah, it's the worst, that's why I try not to die. But there are worse things about being dead."

"Like what?"

"I'm a swordsman and when I died I left my swords behind," he spoke with an underlying tone of anger. 

Sanji was nonplussed, "So, clothes come with you, but not swords?"

"Unfortunately not. I have swords here but it took me about fifty years to manage to get enough to buy three and their condition is nowhere near as good."

Sanji was more concerned with the fact that he had said three. "What the fuck do you need three swords for?" 

"That's how many I use," Zoro shrugged. 

"What do you do the third one?"

"Put it in my mouth," he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Where else would I put it?"

"I don't know, for all I know you could have a super power to wield a third sword in this weird place."

"What? That's just stupid."

"Shut up," Sanji tried to imagine Zoro fighting with a sword in his mouth. He pictured the swords in his mouth hilt first. "What it someone hits the end too hard and it goes down your throat?"

Zoro looked confused "I don't think the sword would go into my mouth like that." Not unless he had a magical and invincible snake throat. Now that would be a super power. 

"Yeah, it would," Sanji objected, "It would go right down your throat."

"Wait," Zoro stopped him, "How are you thinking about this? Describe it to me."

"Hilt like this," Sanji said, holding his hand like he had a sword hilt and putting his lips to the hole, inadvertently making a suggestive move that he didn't realize until it was too late. Zoro didn't seem to notice thought, he was too busy laughing. 

"You fucking idiot, that is not how you hold a sword with your mouth. You bite the grip and hold it sideway."

"So, not like an elephant then?"

"Not like an elephant at all. More like a monkey swinging on a vine with its mouth."

Sanji shook his head in disbelief, "I'm going to have to see this, it sounds absolutely ridiculous."

"It's amazing," Zoro assured him. 

"Whatever, I gag when I hold a toothbrush between my teeth for too long."

"Does that make it difficult when you're sucking dick?" Zoro asked, "Do you have to take a break to gag?"

Sanji started, "Wow, that was a huge jump in conversation. We've just met and already you're thinking about me in a sexual light. I can't say I'm surprised, I am gorgeous after all, but still. And aren't you from a homophobic time period?"

"That wasn't me hitting on you, I'm not that big of an asshole. I was just being an asshole, regular sized."

"Could have fooled me."

"Shut up, it was me making a generalization about your sexuality based on your girly face."

"My face is not girly! Girls don't have facial hair."

"Ugly ones do."

"That's fucking terrible, a lady can still be beautiful even with facial hair," Sanji said, he would treat a bearded lady with the utmost respect. 

"I guess that's true, you're one of the ugly ones though."

"Shut the fuck up, I'm gorgeous."

"If you say so."

"Ugh, I'm feeling pretty upset right now. I've just been called ugly and accused of sucking dick."

"Let's settle this right now then. Have you ever had a penis in your mouth? Answer me that." Zoro stopped walking, a serious expression on his face as he looked Sanji in the eyes. Sanji stared right back. 

"I can firmly say," Sanji started, raising his finger to illustrate his point, "That I can neither confirm, nor deny that accusation."

Zoro snickered, "You know that's basically a confession, right?"

"No, I could be bluffing for all you know. All you really need to understand is that I'm not about to suck your dick anytime soon and that's all I have to say about that."

"That's what you think."

"What was that?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it."

"Don't be so fucking creepy."

They walked along for a while in silence before Sanji spoke up again, "So, what are you friends like?"

"Are you just going to follow me all the way back to them?"

"What else am I going to do?"

Zoro sighed, "I live with six people. Robin used to be a Russian spy, but the CIA executed her in the 70s. Nami was killed in Sweden in a car crash in the 90s. Franky was killed in a metal shop accident in the early 2000s in America. Usopp's plane went down on his way to Australia in the 80s. Chopper was mauled in Canada by a deer in the 60s. Luffy drowned in a flood in Brazil in the 30s. And Brook won't tell us where he's from or how he died but he's been here longer than all of us."

"Did you have to list them by cause of death? I wanted to know what they were like personality wise." Something about that was a little morbid. 

"Oh, there're awesome," Zoro's said, "Otherwise I wouldn't hang around them. They can be really fucking stupid sometimes though."

"So, what do you do all day? Sit around playing with your swords?"

Zoro ignored that last comment, "We stock up so that one day we can get through the tunnel."

"Is it that hard to get through?"

"Yeah, a bunch of fucking assholes along the way try to murder you and send you back to your start. There are still people from the BC times trying to get through the tunnel."

"Fuck, so I'm stuck here no matter what happens?"

"Pretty much."

"Welp, this is going to be an adventure and a half, but I'm sure we'll be fine."

Zoro's eyes narrowed, "I don't remember inviting you."

"You have a bad memory, don't worry that just comes along with being an old man," Sanji grinned but the look quickly fell, "Oh god, I just had a thought, what happens to babies when they die?"

Zoro grimaced, "Well, I've never seen a fetus on the ground, so I'm guessing they don't count as people yet, but every now and then you find a baby. It's hard to take care of them because there aren't any animals to milk and there aren't any pregnant women. Mostly they get stuck in a loop of dying."

Sanji looked horrified, "That is fucking horrible, possibly one of the worst things I've ever heard."

Zero shrugged, "That's the way things are. Just imagine having a spawn point near a baby, it would be terrible. It would be even more terrible if it was a whole field of babies. Sometimes people the same age spawn in the same place."

"Like you and me?"

"Are you twenty seven?"

"Yeah."

"Then yes, like you and me."

Sanji was still stuck on the baby thing, "God, I'd rather not think about this baby stuff."

"Well, if it gets to be too much for you you can always kill yourself," Zoro gave him a condescending pat on the shoulder. 

"But won't I just show up back there?" Sanji pointed to the path they'd come from. 

"Yeah, but you won't be bothering me anymore."

"Ha ha, you're very funny," he laughed sarcastically. 

Despite Zoro's decidedly limited protest, Sanji continued for follow the swordsman along his path home. The journey was very strange, it was either very quiet or filled with arguing. Zoro was telling the truth when he said there was no day and night cycle, but they still needed sleep to function. So, whenever they got tired they slept. Sanji was always slightly concerned that Zoro would ditch him while he slept, so he tried to be on alert but the swordsman never did leave. 

Eating was also a problem, all they ever had to eat were the bits of desert roots they dug up and those were not especially filling. At least the weather was nice enough. It was cold but not too cold. Zoro said that there were actual weather patterns, but the sky was always either gray and cloudy or violently stormy. There were no blue skies in this place. 

By the end of the trip Sanji was exhausted and wished desperately that he had a different pair of shoes. From what he could see, he city itself was not really much of a city, it was more of a huge sprawling shanty town surrounding a large rock formation with buildings at the top. The reason the city was set up there was probably due to its proximity to a spindly looking forest and a river. A forest next to a river in the middle of a sand waste was a diamond in the rough. 

"There are always assholes fighting to live up there," Zoro pointed to the formation, "Sometimes there will be someone who comes along and is ruthless enough to gather up a little army and take the place or order people around, but they never last long. 

"I think this is probably the biggest slum in the universe," Sanji said, it almost would have been impressive of it wasn't so horrible. 

The closer they had walked to the city the more people they had seen either just walking or actually appearing. While he could have gone off with any of them, Sanji stuck with Zoro. He had already bothered to remember his name and some random inform about him, so why bother to get to know a new person?

"Nah, there are bigger cities than this down south," Zoro said. 

"And exactly where are we in relation to everything in this world?"

"Nami says that we're in the middle, but more toward the south."

"Nami sounds smart and beautiful."

"She's mean and greedy too."

Sanji kicked him in the knee, "Don't insult a lady, now where are we going?"

"Over there," he pointed to shack with a white line painted across it down its middle horizontally. 

"Why there?"

"Because that's where they pick me up."

"Why do they need to pick you up, you already came this far."

Zoro's grimaced, "I have what they call a 'bad sense of direction'."

"You got us here fine," Sanji pointed out.

"But it's easy to find cities, other stuff is impossible."

"Right, whatever you say, seaweed brains."

When they approached the shack they saw a person standing there, looking bored. 

"Oi, Usopp, over here," Zoro called to him. The other man turned their direction his expression going from relieved to confused. 

"Who's this?" he asked, giving Sanji a sideways look. 

"I picked up a prostitute on the way here, I saved his life so now he's agreed to be my slave for so long as he lives."

"Wait, does that mean until I die again or until I'm dead forever?" Sanji asked. 

"Until you're dead forever."

"Ugh, fuck that. Either way," he tried to kick Zoro, but things just spiraled into a fight, both of them forgetting about Usopp. When said was knocked backwards into the sand he caught sight of Usopp again and rolled out of Zoro's reach. "I'm Sanji and I'm not a prostitute, I'm a chef," he said, holding out a hand. 

"Nice to meet you," Usopp said hesitantly. 

"We should get going," Zoro cut in, "I have things to do."

"Right," Usopp said, turning and starting off to the north west. "So, Sanji, how did you run into Zoro?" Usopp asked. 

"Well, I died and showed up in the middle of the desert with no idea where to go and then he showed up to be my guardian angel," Sanji said, flipping his hair. 

"No, I died and this loser followed me all the way here," Zoro's grumbled. 

"And you let him?" Usopp asked incredulously.

"Yep, I'm just that amazing," Sanji chirped. 

Zoro glowered at him, "He was just so pathetic I couldn't bring myself to crush him."

"Psh, I'd like to see you try. I'd kick your ass clear over the moon, if this place even has a moon."

"No one knows," Usopp supplied 

"Then I guess you'll be the first to find out," Sanji's lips curled up in a smirk. He wished, not for the first time, that he had a cigarette to put in his mouth. It wasn't the addiction that drove the need, his body wasn't feeling that anymore after he had died, it was just the familiarity of the action. 

"Are you guys going to be like this the whole time," Usopp wilted like a dead flower. 

"Probably," Zoro shrugged. 

And they were, they kept up their arguing for an admirable amount of time. They argued more about nothing of consequence than most people could about something important. Usopp just led them on quietly, too afraid to break them up or even make his voice heard. 

The trip with Usopp took about half a day, or what Sanji imagined was half a day because it was literally impossible to tell. Their destination was a small, unimpressive patch of trees near a tiny stream. It really didn't look like much. 

"That's where we're going?" Sanji asked, giving the place a dubious look. 

"Just wait," Zoro said, "You have no idea, Franky decked the place out to the max."

It wasn't until they were right at the tree line that Sanji noticed the den in the sand. It was less a den, than a cave entrance strangely located in the ground. They had to slide down into the pit to do through a door that was shockingly normal height. 

They walked on through a little hallway. Sanji could hear voices and could see the bodies attached to those voices as they turned the corner into what appeared to be the main room, lit by weirdly glowing rocks. 

"Zoro!" A boy with straw hat exclaimed excitedly, jumping up to greet his friend but stopped when he saw Sanji. "Who are you?"

"Sanji," Sanji answered nervously, all eyes were on him, "I followed this idiot here," he jerked a finger toward Zoro."

"Aw, Zoro, you brought home a friend," teased a woman with orange hair. 

"Shut up, he's not my friend, he's fucking annoying," Zoro bit back at her. 

Without skipping a beat Sanji kicked him in the leg, "Don't speak that way to a lady, you Neanderthal."

And with that they were off in their own little world again, cursing at each other. They only stopped when the straw hat boy started laughing. 

"What are you laughing at, idiot?" Zoro asked. 

The boy ignored him and addressed Sanji, "I like you," he said, "And Zoro likes you, you have to stay with us."

"I do not like him!" Zoro shouted his objection rather loudly. 

"Join us," the boy told the blond. 

Sanji blinked, "Well, I guess I don't have any other plans."

"Yes! Welcome to the crew! I'm Luffy," Luffy exclaimed, "And this is Chopper, Robin, Nami, Franky, and Brook," he pointed to each in turn. Sanji nodded to each one called. 

"It's nice to meet you all," Sanji grinned, "I can see you are all better people than the moss head, so I'm honored to be here." If he was going to be here for the rest of eternity at least he would have better company than just Zoro.


	2. Food Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sanji has food trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: The stress of life with an eating disorder.

Sanji was picking at his food, something he prided himself in never ever doing under any circumstances. He valued all the food he was provided and are it despite his pride, and his most sacred values, he still found himself doing it. He was aimlessly swirling his spaghetti with vegetables, moving them around, cutting up the strands, but not eating them. The smelled wonderful but he made no move to lift them to his mouth for consumption.

He shifted in his seat uncomfortably. His body was sore, he had been doing a lot of training lately and he could feel it deep within his muscles. It made him want to lay down and go to sleep. At least if he could feel the soreness he knew the exercise was doing something. He sighed, setting down his fork and getting up from the table, he wasn't hungry anyway. He put the spaghetti into a Tupperware container and into the fridge. Maybe he would want it more later.

He walked leisurely back to his room for a shower before bed, he had gotten home late from work so the sky was dark and telling him he needed sleep. The Baratie had been especially busy and it had taken a lot out of him. At least it wasn't boring.

The warm water felt good on his aching muscles as he scrubbed down his body. He exited the shower feeling sufficiently cleaner. He dried off by the sink and stepped into a pair of boxers. He set the towel aside but as he turned he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He stood up straighter, addressing his appearance. He was very pale, but he'd always been pale, despite the lingering tan of summer most people still carried into the fall. But that wasn't the main focus of Sanji's attention, his focus was on his stomach. He ran a hand over his torso, testing its evenness. The smooth hills of his muscles were visible and he was, by all accounts, a fit individual. But there was something that vexed him.

He had maybe a half centimeter of fat covering his stomach and he couldn't not notice it. It wasn't like it was all that apparent, no one but him would even think to notice it. Unfortunately, he did notice it and it bothered him a lot. More than he would have ever thought.

He had first noticed it about a year ago, after a weekend of overeating shitty fast food. He always felt terrible about eating out, it always made his stomach hurt after all the good food he usually ate, but this time he felt especially terrible. He remembered shifting around and wondering what exactly felt wrong about him. He had to think about it for a long time. Then, his hand happened to brush against his side and something about it felt weird. He moved the hand to his stomach and it felt shockingly more fleshy than he had expected. It made him feel kind of gross, like his skin didn't fit right. He just wanted to slip out of his skin suit and walk around as a skinless muscle man, but then obviously he would get directly exposed to all sorts of germs and he would die of some horrible infection.

After his initial discovery of this disturbing information, he had ignored it as best he could and gone along with his life. What did it matter anyway? It was almost nothing anyway. The notion that it was anything significant was absurd enough to make him laugh. It wasn't like anyone would ever notice.

This method of ignoring the issue had worked for maybe a few weeks, all the wile, this little layer of fat insistently bothered him. Whenever he sat down he could feel it and he would shift his weight uncomfortably, trying to make the feeling go away. He would take his hand and run it over the extra flesh, moving it to the side and holding it there. It made him feel marginally better. He wanted to go back to when his stomach was tight and almost perfect. He had always been very, very thin and he still was, but he just felt kind of weird now. He started wishing he could bunch up all the extra flesh and cut it off with a pair of scissors. Part of the temptation there was to see if he actually had the balls to do it but he restrained himself because the idea was a little bit fucking insane. Not exactly the thinking of a logical individual.

While he restrained the urge to cut off chunks of himself, touching his stomach became a thing he did more and more often. Some may even have said that the action was a little compulsive. He was always subtle about it. He would cross his arms, or when he was sitting he would put an arm across his chest. Sometimes he would grab his side and pull it tighter. It didn't make him feel much better, mostly it just made him feel worse and that made him pull harder at his skin.

The more he did it the more fucking disgusting he felt, but he refused to look at himself in the mirror to confirm his flabby stomach's existence. If he looked at it then it was like he was letting this thing get the better of him. He determinably avoided looking down at himself while he changed his clothes or took showers.

So, for a few months he continued as he was, although he started exercising a little more and he started running when he could in an effort to get rid of the fat. But eventually it started to bother him, so much he had to look.

He stood in front of the mirror after taking a shower, shirtless. He looked at his stomach and was slightly confused, it didn't look much different than he had always thought it did. He put his hand to his stomach and he could feel the fat there. He pushed his hand down so his skin was tight across his stomach, the difference it made appearance wise was almost negligible. So, why did it bother him so much? Why did he feel so horrible?

He turned sideways, there he could see the curve of his fat a little better, but it still looked like nothing. He was just being crazy. That was all, he was being totally stupid. There was nothing to worry about, he was fine. Just stop thinking about it, stop thinking. He was fine, just stop.

But he couldn't stop thinking about it. It was physically impossible. Once he looked at his stomach, he started doing it more and more often. Every time he went into the bathroom he would check, to console himself that he was being absolutely ridiculous, because he was and he knew it. He would check when he was laying in bed at night, he would check before he opened the fridge, he would check every time he thought no one would see, squeezing his skin and twisting to try making that fat disappear.

Somehow it didn't help.

He started to run harder, train more, until he would push himself to tears by the end. Then he would put a hand to his stomach and it would feel just the same. It made him sick. He started making all the food he ate healthier, not that he didn't eat healthy food before, but now it was just more dramatic.

He was painfully aware by this point that his behavior was bordering on the territory of an eating disorder, but he pushed the thought aside and tried not to think about it. If he didn't acknowledge it then it wasn't a problem. Obviously, that didn't help in not thinking about it. He was simultaneously aware and oblivious to what he was doing; willful innocence.

He also got into the habit of pinching at his excess flesh. He would tighten the muscles in his stomach and pinch at the excess. There was always excess and it made him feel like he was stuck in the wrong skin. It wasn't just his stomach that he pinched at, it was also the skin on his ribs, at his waist, on his back, and anywhere else.

So, he started reducing the amount the amount of food he was taking in, eating less for breakfast and less at lunch but leaving dinner alone. Now it was harder to ignore how obsessive he was being. He was creeping slowly toward the edge of anorexia, if he wasn't already there.

The reduction of his food continued to increase, until he was eating only a fruit for breakfast, a bar for lunch, and not as much for dinner. He was always subtle about it, no one ever noticed. Sometimes he didn't eat anything for lunch at all, but most of the time he had to eat a bar to stop his stomach from growling. That was the last thing he needed while he was working in the Baratie, Zeff would be outrageously disappointed in him. He didn't want that. When he was working he would usually have to eat a full lunch for the sake of appearances and he would always eat in the company of others, even when it made him feel sick.

Months passed on in this way and Sanji sold found himself in May at Chopper's high school graduation ceremony. The kid was graduating two years early and even then I seemed far too soon for him to be leaving already.

After the whole big event the gang when back to Sanji's and they had some cake that the chef had prepared. The cake was red velvet with cream cheese icing and it was fucking outstanding. It was so deliciously rich that Sanji had a massive peace. Halfway through he realized his mistake, it was too rich and he couldn't finished it, but he couldn't just eat half of it either. So, he ate the whole thing and felt horrible afterward. He was stuffed to the brim, feeling about two seconds from puking all over the floor, or Zoro's face. He was sitting right there and it would have been kind of funny.

But puking up food he had just eaten was something that Sanji absolutely refused to do. Not eating he could somehow justify with a twisted sort of logic and not think about as a major issues, but wasting food by throwing it up he could not. So, he swallowed the sick feeling and kept smiling with his friends.

That had been about a month ago, now he was the point where he didn't want to eat anything at all. The thought of food made his stomach clench and bile rise in his throat. He at little for breakfast, nothing for lunch, and very little for dinner. Mostly he just played with his food until he was too disgusted with himself to do anything more than leave. He still worked out until the point of breaking down. Eating almost nothing while still training up was not advisable, but he couldn't stop himself.

Whenever he stood up the world would spin because he was so light headed. He still hid it very well, no one appeared to be noticing after all. He was more upset now that he couldn't stop doing this more than he was upset about the fact that it was happening in the first place.

Sanji laid down in his bed, a hand coming up to touch his pale stomach obsessively. He could still feel it. Why wouldn't it stop bothering him? He grit his teeth and turned over, trying to find sleep as quickly as he could in order to escape this bullshit.

Morning came with the cries of his hungry stomach. Sanji laid there for a while before sitting up and going to the kitchen. His breakfast was a small peach and that was all, chewing gum would sustain him for the rest of the day.

After "breakfast", he had house chores to do so he fluttered around cleaning things all day. At one he was finally done, laying out on the couch watching Hannibal Lecter murder people. Good times. He took an hour break to work out, had a quick shower, and skipped lunch to go back to his original position. His stomach was empty and he felt generally bad all over.

That's when the front door unlock and open, he shot straight up. His door had been locked, there was only one person who knew were the key was and would just barge in like that.

"Oi, cook, I bought the second season of A Game of Thrones," Zoro announced, holding up the dvd case.

"Why are you here? Can't you watch it on your own?" Sanji grumbled, not getting up.

Zoro looked confused, "What do you mean? I only waited to get this one so you could finish the fucking second book first. You have to watch it with me." Neither of them had HBO to watch it on. Either way, what he said was true. Sanji had started A Song of Ice and Fire not terribly long ago. He was not reading the books per se, he was listening to the audiobooks because it was way faster. He would do other things while ignoring the huge amounts of boring stuff to get to the interesting things. Zoro was the only other member of their little group who was really into A Game of Thrones, but watching it with him was better than nothing even if it was a little... uncomfortable at times.

Sanji sighed, "Fine, put it in," he waved a hand to the DVD player.

"Not until you make popcorn." Oh, so he was just going to march in, present his treasure then immediately hold it ransom, was he? Ugh, Sanji was too fucking tired to put up the effort to provide the appropriate violent response.

"Why do you want popcorn? It's the middle of the day," Sanji complained. It wasn't really the middle of the day but the sun was still up so the objection still stood.

"All good shows, slash movies, need popcorn, it's an unspoken rule," Zoro said irritably. Obviously, he was annoyed that Sanji wasn't getting up to start on the popcorn before he had to say something.

Sanji sighed, "Alrighty then, I'll go do that," he hoisted his legs over the side of the couch and stood. The ground wavered under his feet, black dots prickling over his vision. He stumbled slightly forward.

Distantly he heard Zoro's say, "Oi, cook, are you alright?"

He tried to regain his balance but his legs gave out from under him. Everything was black for a second. He blinked once, twice, three times and he was back, Zoro's worried face hovering over him. "Oi, talk to me. Are you okay?"

Sanji shoved himself into a sitting position, "Yeah, I'm fine."

"What the fuck just happened?"

"My blood sugar must be low, I did a long work out this morning," he lied easily, "I'm fine, I'll go make that popcorn now."

Zoro let him up, but his eyes tracked him suspiciously. While his back was turned to Zoro, Sanji grimaced pulling a hand through his hair. He had to be more careful, if someone were ever to find out about this... thing he was doing to himself it would be humiliating.

Hurriedly, Sanji started on the popcorn. Zoro had the DVD in by now and Sanji could hear the theme song playing, but Zoro paused it before it could actually start playing the show. Once the show was paused, Zoro came over to stare at Sanji while he cut up some pickles, fruits, and cheeses to have with their popcorn.

"What?" Sanji asked irritably when it became apparent that Zoro wasn't about to say anything. He was just staring at him all creepy like.

"I don't know," Zoro said with narrowed eyes, "Something's not right, but I'm not sure what it is."

"Nothing's wrong, so I don't know what your problem is," Sanji pouted.

"I don't believe you."

"Yeah? Well, fuck you." Damn, there may have been a little too much emotion there.

Zoro blinked at the tone of his voice but shut up following that little snap, that was bother good and bad. On the plus, he didn't have to listen to the idiot speak, unfortunately Zoro wasn't about to forget that he had made the slip and little things like that could build up into an idea that Sanji did not want to be built.

The popcorn was popped and both men found themselves sitting in front of the tv watching A Game of Thrones. They were sitting side by side on the couch, popcorn bowl between them.

Zoro seemed to be spending half the time staring at him. Maybe he should be worried, but then again this had been happening a lot recently. Maybe could he already tell something was wrong, or maybe he just liked looking at Sanji. Who could really say? The dynamics of their so called friendship had become a little uncertain recently. There was an existing tension that neither of them really wanted to broach. So, they just tried to ignore it because they were both mature adults. Better to let it sit and rot than poke it with a stick, it might be gross.

As the show progressed, hours started to pass and neither of them wanted to stop watching, the series was just too good to stop. Obviously, it was slightly awkward to sit next to each other during the more... graphically sexy scenes. Or not even that, probably the most awkward thing was watching one of the Kings making out with one of the knights. Nothing like watching a bit of gay face sucking to ease the tension in the room. Whatever, Renly was awesome anyway. Loras could go suck a dick... Well, maybe that was a little too on point.

It was late by the time it was decided that they should stop for the night. Sanji was almost asleep anyway and he was feeling slightly delirious.

"I should probably go," Zoro said standing up, although the tone of his voice suggested that he could be persuaded to stay under the right circumstances. Sanji took a second to debate over whether or not he wanted to keep Zoro there. He ended up deciding; fuck it, no more pussy footing around this mountain of bullshit. Time to be a manly man and deal with the tough shit.

Sanji grabbed the marimo's arm and pulled him back down onto the couch. "Nope, you're staying here."

"But I don't want to sleep on your couch," Zoro complained, his tone was less of complaint and more 'let me sleep in your bed because I know you don't have a guest room'.

Sanji rolled his eyes, "Wow, already suggesting to sleep in my bed. That's very forward if you, but I'm no slut. I don't give it up on the first date."

Zoro's mouth curled up into a grin, "Are you suggesting that this is a date, curly brow?"

"Psh, no," the blond scoffed, "But I'm suggesting that I might want to kiss you on your stupid fucking mouth."

Zoro grin widened, "Do it, I fucking dare you."

So, he did, mwah mwah. Fuck, he was too tired for this. The contact was brief between them because Sanji started giggling like a stupid little girl.

Zoro looked very confused, "What?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it," Sanji leaned in again and gave him a more proper kiss this time.

After some measure of time later, Sanji pulled havoc "As nice as this is, my eyes will fall out of my head if I don't get any sleep," he smiled sleepily.

"Should I carry you off to bed like a fair maiden?"

"Try it and you're dead."

"I would rather not be dead."

"I would rather you not be dead too."

Zoro's grin turned rather impish, "Wow, all I had to to to get a complement from you was to pleasure you with my mouth. I should do that more often."

"Wow, way to be misleading, but yes you should."

"I swear that I will."

Sanji lifted an eyebrow, "You swear, eh? That sounds rather serious. If you don't pleasure me with your mouth on a regular basis then I'll start cutting your toes off, so be careful what you swear to."

"I'm not worried, I don't need my toes to be awesome.

"Okay, and with that we are off to bed." Sanji stood from the couch and walked around to put the bowls in the kitchen. When he came back, Zoro was still sitting there staring at him. "Are you coming?" he asked.

"I was waiting for the direct verbal invitation," Zoro said, standing to fall Sanji down the hall and into his bedroom. A change of clothes and a spare toothbrush later and the two of them were in bed side by side, separated by a little space.

"Why are you all the way over there?" Zoro chuckled, dragging Sanji closer. His hand came up to rest under Sanji's shirt, over his stomach. This made the blond want to shrink away inside himself but he did nothing to move away. He found it hard to sleep that night.

XxxX

So, now he was officially 'in a relationship' or whatever. That was nice. Zoro came over more and they spent a lot more time making out than they used to. With Zoro being over more it made it kind of hard to disguise his eating habits. He would force the delicious food down even when it made him want to puke. He was staring to feel even more gross than before, Zoro didn't seem to understand how gross he was.

"You're so tiny," Zoro said, sticking a hand up Sanji's shirt to run his thumb over the edge of his rib cage.

Sanji flinched away more violently than he intended to. "Don't do that, asshole, it tickles!" he covered for himself without skipping a beat.

Zoro's had retreated slightly, "Geez, sorry, I'm just saying. Sometimes I think if I made one wrong move you'd snap in half. I could seriously break you."

Sanji made a show of rolling his eyes, "You're being dramatic."

Zoro was not dissuaded, "I'd tell you to eat more, but you're the cook, so you're always making people eat."

The words stung, but Sanji kept his face from showing it. Instead, he wrapped his arms around Zoro's neck, one hand brushing against the three earrings. He liked the way they chimed together. Instead of shoving his tongue down Zoro's throat like he knew Zoro wanted, he jerked them abruptly to the side and the two of them tumbled off the side of the couch with a rattling thump, Sanji happily on top.

"I promise, I would never let you snap me in half," he grinned, leering over Zoro.

"You probably shouldn't say that," Zoro warned.

"Why not?"

"Because it makes me want to try."

Sanji pulled his sexiest face, "Then try it, I dare you."

XxxX

Sanji was having a bad day, a very bad day. He had eaten a big greasy hamburger at lunch when he was out with Luffy earlier and now it was evening and he still felt god awful. Zoro was over, but Sanji wanted to make him leave. The only thing the blond was in the mood for at the moment was curling up into a ball and crying, but that wasn't an option right now. So, instead he made a light pasta dish for dinner and sat down to eat with Zoro.

The swordsman immediately started stuffing his face, but Sanji hesitated. He had to eat for the sake of appearances, but he wasn't sure he could stomach it right now. The thought made his stomach clench. Quickly, before Zoro could notice his hesitance, he put the food into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. He was eating, but he wasn't enjoying it. He used to enjoy food. That fact made him want to cry.

As he shoveled the food into his mouth he felt more and more horrible, and apparently it showed on his face.

"Are you okay?" Zoro asked, setting down his fork to give Sanji his full attention because apparently he looked that freaking terrible.

Sanji's fingers shook slightly with the strain of trying to keep it together. "I'm fine," he said even as his stomach lurched.

"You don't look fine," Zoro said, eyeing Sanji very carefully.

"Well-" the words caught in his throat as he felt his stomach lurch again. He stood up so quickly that he knocked over his chair in his haste to not puke all over his floor. He only just made it, retching what little he had in his stomach back up. Tears burned in his eyes half out of shame and half from the burning feeling in his throat.

A warm hand was placed on his back for a moment then it was gone. Sanji flushed the toilet and leaned back against the bathroom wall, his head in his hands. He was desperately trying not to have a panic attack or burst into tears. Fuck, how had it come to this? Why did he let it get so out of hand? What was he going to tell Zoro? He would play it off as just being sick, that's what he would do. Zoro had no way of knowing what was wrong, how could he?

The swordsman returned, pressing a glass of water against Sanji's arm. He took the water gratefully, not meeting Zoro's worried gaze. He took a hesitant sip. "Thanks," he mumbled.

Zoro sighed, "What's wrong?" he asked insistently.

"I don't feel good, what do you think," Sanji spat back with more force than intended. Before he could react, there was a hand on his forehead feeling for his temperature.

"You don't have a fever," he said perplexed, "And you're being kind of weird." He tilted his head into Sanji's frame of vision and their eyes met for a second, but Sanji's eyes, or rather eye, quickly darted away.

"I am not," he protested.

"Yeah, you really fucking are. What is up with you?"

"Nothing, I'm fine, just leave me alone," he curled in on himself, his arms wrapped securely around his middle. He clenched at his sides hard enough for it to hurt. The rational side of his brain was screaming at him to stop, that Zoro was going to figure out what was wrong but he couldn't stop it. A strained whine made its way past his lips, muffled from his covered mouth.

Zoro put a hand on his arm, "Sanji, what-?" The blond jerked violently away.

"Don't," he hissed, quickly standing up and walking out of the bathroom. He wasn't sure what to do with himself, but he didn't want to face Zoro and he didn't want to walk past the food sitting out on the table either. So, he went to the living room, grabbed a blanket and curled up into a ball. Zoro was hot on his heels.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!" He demanded.

Sanji just made a whining sound, "Go away! I can't deal with you right now."

"No, not until I know what's wrong!" He could not for the life of him think what the hell would be wrong. Sanji had been in a down mood all the time Zoro had been over today, but he hadn't reacted so violently until they had dinner. He didn't think he'd ever see the day where Sanji wasted his precious food by puking it back up into the toilet, not that there had been much vomit. He always somehow imagined that Sanji had full stomach control. Then again, he hadn't seen Sanji acting the same way he usually did around food. He seemed more withdrawn. It was kind of weird, really weird actually. A weird sort of idea had been forming in the back of his mind for a while, but no, that was a crazy idea, there was no way. It a was totally and utterly absurd idea. But the more he thought about it... Maybe it was best to be sure.

Zoro grabbed Sanji by the feet and dragged him off the couch, the chef yelled in surprise as Zoro started trying to get his shirt over his head.

"Woah, what the fuck are you doing!?" He shouted as his teeshirt left him.

Zoro ignored him and placed his hands on Sanji's flat stomach, causing the blond to start thrashing violently. Sanji always hated it when Zoro touched he I stomach. Every time he did Zoro could feel him go rigid but he would act like it didn't bother him. "Is this the problem?" Zoro demanded.

"Get the fuck off! Leave me alone!" Sanji tried to twist away, but Zoro grabbed him around the waist and dragged him back, hands firmly over his stomach.

"Please tell me I'm just being an idiot," Zoro groaned but Sanji didn't acknowledge him only struggled harder, that was all the answer he needed. "Jesus Christ, Sanji, you are the last person I would think to have an eating problem."

"Shut up," Sanji managed, "I'm fine let me go."

"You are not fucking fine, this is solid evidence that you are the opposite of fucking fine!"

Sanji tried to speak again but the words stuck in his throat as Zoro moved a hand over his belly.

"Cut it out!"

"No, you're obviously fucking delusional. There is like no fat on your body." He pinched at the skin around Sanji's stomach. There was little to no fat there.

"I doesn't matter! I still feel gross," Sanji had gone limp and was staring up at the ceiling.

"So, you admit that this is the problem?" Zoro verified.

"Yes, shut up."

"Do you realize how fucking stupid you're being?"

"Yes, I know but I can't help it! Nothing makes me feel any better."

"How long has this been a problem."

"Since like last fall."

"What? Fuck, why?"

Sanji put a hand to his throbbing forehead, "I don't know, it just happened, it wasn't a problem before." He leaned back, crossing his arms over his stomach.

"So, you just spontaneously developed anorexia?"

Sanji cringed at the word, "It would seem so."

"I hope you appreciate the irony of this situation."

"Oh, I do. It haunts my every waking moment."

"So, what now?"

"Huh?"

"I know what's up now so how do we move forward from here?"

"I don't know," Sanji gave a half hearted shrug.

"I mean the obvious answer would be therapy."

Sanji groaned, "Don't make me go to a therapist! That sounds fucking awful."

"Yeah, well I can't exactly trust you to do this on your own, can I?"

Sanji's face flushed with shame. "I guess not."

"Then therapy it is."

"Don't tell anyone about this."

Zoro snorted, "As if I would, what kind of person do you think I am?"

"The idiot kind."

"Shut up," Zoro leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. "Or I will bitch slap the logic back into you stupid brain."

"It's worth a try if I don't have to go to therapy," Sanji said darkly, he wasn't sure what he was feeling anymore. He had been caught up in a tidal wave of shame, anger, self loathing, and vertigo. Yet, he was slightly relieved that Zoro knew now. Sure, this whole eating thing was still an issue but at least he could have Zoro make him not do things that were so unsafe. He didn't know how to make himself stop so, he would have to have Zoro be his emergency breaks. He really didn't want to crash into a mess of rubble and die. So, Zoro had better not fuck this up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that realistically Sanji as a character would never do this, but I heard something about a link between anorexia and obsessive compulsive disorder and I'm using that to justify this. Being a rather compulsive person myself, sometimes it's impossible to not do things even when you acknowledge you're being stupid. It doesn't help.
> 
> I don't get bulimics, the idea of eating then puking horrifies me. I'm afraid of puking =_= but this story is dedicated to the cake I ate after my graduation that was so good and rich it made me feel sick for two days :p
> 
> Thanks.


	3. Harry Potter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter

Sanji stood at the edge of the dark lake, the grass felt cool and wet with dew against his bare feet. He was focusing on that feeling, trying to delay, to not think too hard about what was happening. A cool breeze blew across the water sending a ripple over the mirror like expanse. Sanji shivered as he lifted his vest over his head and started unbuttoning his dress shirt. He fumbled with the buttons in the darkness.

This was such a stupid idea, really stupid, but he was a brave and noble Gryffindor, he couldn't just back down from a challenge. He folded his dress shirt and placed it on a branch well off the ground, where it would be safe.

As he started removing his pants he tried to ignore Zoro, who was struggling to get his shirt off. He had already taken off his pants and was trying to get his shirt off in his underwear. Sanji paused for a moment to watch him, but when he succeeded in his task he went back to kicking off his pants. It was best to avoid looking at Zoro currently, despite his hyper aggravating personality, he did have a very fit physical form. And this, Sanji tried to avoid looking at him at all, just in case he got sucked into staring. Staring was bad, thinking was bad. Dammit, he had to stop thinking about it. He shook himself and focused on his task, the removal of pants was a very complicated procedure when distracted. He managed to do it without fall on his face though.

And, they were, two seventh year Gryffindors, standing around in their underwater in front of a lake full of the unknown. The lights of Hogwarts glowed up on the hill and shimmered across the water.

Again, this was a really stupid idea. It had all started during care of magical creatures, or at least that was where the idea became a thing of interest. The class was out on the edge of the forbidden forest, near the lake, listening to Hagrid go on about bowtruckles. Bowtruckles were horrible little stick creatures with long claws, and they were not very friendly. No one really knew why they had to know anything about bowtruckles, it wasn't like many of them were going to be hanging around in the woods, frolicking with the bowtruckles. It was just one of those annoying things that they had to learn in order pass.

When the lecture part was done, they were let to take care of the little wooden pests. Chopper was the only one who made an effort to look after it, the rest of the group was busy slacking off. Chopper was a good little first year Hufflepuff, but he was more than capable academically. So he could get them a good grade, he had to skip about four years of classes to be in this one after all. The only reason he was allowed was because his grandmother lived in the middle of a creepy forest like the forbidden forest, so he was used to dealing with such things.

So, while Chopper carried on with that, Luffy was trying to find a centipede to put on the little boat he had in his hands, so he could send it afloat across the Black Lake. Luffy was a Griffendor sixth year not so well know for his academic abilities. He was more well know for his bottomless stomach and his tendency to get into a lot of trouble, and the fact that his older brother had nearly burnt out the Gryffindor common room his last year of school and had been expelled, but whatever, Ace had no regrets. He worked a magical fire fighter now. Magical fire fighters were far superior to regular fire fighters because they could just apperate to the fire and put it out with their wands, or so Ace liked to boast.

When Luffy finally found the sort of insect he was looking he let out a cheer of triumph and placed it in his little boat. Well, it wasn't his boat exactly, Nami actually made it. Nami was a sixth year Slytherin with an abundance of natural magical ability, but would rather manipulate other people into doing things for her. Among her other interests here alchemy and counting her money, it was pretty easy to see where her priorities were.

When Luffy pushed the boat and it's centipede captain into the water, Nami waved her wand and set a gust of wind to sent it off across the still waters.

"Fare ye well," Luffy said, giving a little salut as it sailed off, "I hope that the mermaids accept this as an offering of piece between our peoples," he said a little too seriously.

"Have I ever told you of the time I wrestled with the with a giant squid in this very lake?" asked Usopp enthusiastically. He was also a sixth year Gryffindor.

"Really?" Luffy asked with glittering eyes.

"There isn't a giant squid out there, that's just a rumor," Sanji snorted.

"Yes, there is," Usopp assured him, "and I wrestled with it. I punched it right it its big eyeball and it ran away crying like a giant baby."

"Squids don't run or cry, idiot," Zoro said from his spot laying back on the grass.

"You wouldn't know, you've never seen one," Usopp said hastily.

"I bet I could wrestle a giant squid," Zoro said thoughtfully.

"A giant squid would squeeze you to death then bite your head off," Sanji scoffed.

"Maybe," Zoro nodded, "but I bet I could last longer in a squid wrestling match than you could."

"In a wrestling match maybe," Sanji had to admit that when it came to grappling around on the ground Zoro probably had him beat, "but from a distance I could kick the shit out of a giant squid."

"I challenge you to a squid wrestling tournament," Zoro exclaimed, jabbing Sanji in the leg. Sanji had walked over to stare down at Zoro in order to argue with him more conveniently.

"We don't have any giant squids to wrestle with," Sanji pointed out, obviously if there was a giant squid there right now he would be all over it, no question.

"Is that fear I detect?" Zoro taunted.

"No, it's irritation at how stupid you are." Zoro did have the most annoying ability to settle himself right under his skin, and would he stuck in his mind. It drove him insane, but there were times when he couldn't stop thinking about the idiot. It was always best to suppress those thoughts though.

"I'm not stupid, you are!" Zoro spat back childishly

"No, I believe you are sadly mistaken."

"I think you're confusing you with me."

They would have argued longer, but class the was at its end. The students rushed up the steps of the hill to the school. Sanji and Zoro were the only ones with the next class together; seventh year muggle studies with Robin. They weren't supposed to call her Robin because she was their teacher, but they had known her when they were both first years and she was in her final year as a Ravenclaw. She actually made the class semi interesting and everyone was too terrified of her not to pay attention.

They listed intently to a lecture on World War Two and the class passed quickly. Sanji got up to leave when the class ended, but stopped when he noticed that Zoro didn't get up. The blond was torn between waiting for the mossy haired idiot and making it look like ha actually cared about ditching him and waiting to see what Zoro was up to.

As it happened, Zoro was waiting for everyone to leave. He took notice of Sanji's choice to wait for him and made note to tease him about it later. When the last person walked out he made his way over to Robin. "Oi, Robin, I have a question," he said bluntly.

"Oh?" she raised an eyebrow in question.

"Yeah, is there a giant squid in the Black Lake?" If anyone would know something like that it was her.

"There have been rumors of a giant squid, yes," the dark haired woman inclined her head.

"But are they for real?" Zoro stressed.

"I couldn't say," she said, although there was a cryptic smile on her face that said otherwise.

"I bet you could," Zoro argued irritably, "You just don't want to tell me."

"Why do you want to know?" I wasn't as if Zoro was usually brimming with questions. He wasn't usually the thinky thinky sort of person.

"I want to know if I could wrestle I giant squid," he shrugged in return, because that was obviously a normal reaction to thinking about squids.

"You're an idiot," Sanji shook his head. He should probably just leave Zoro behind or else he would be late to his next class. But he had to make sure that the brute wasn't too mean to the lovely Robin, right? Yeah, that sounded like a pretty good excuse. Because he would never stay just to walk down the hall with Zoro, that was illogical, seeing as he hated that grass haired moron.

Robin tilted her head in confusion, oblivious to Sanji inner struggle, "A giant squid would drown you if you tried to wrestle with it."

"I would be too quick for it," Zoro assured her, sounding far too serious and confident than he had any right to be.

"Okay, that's enough," Sanji said, grabbing Zoro by the arm and pulling him back toward the exit. "Time to stop bothering Robin about this nonsense."

"You can't tell me what to do," Zoro argued, pulling his arm back slightly but Sanji held strong.

"I can and I will, we're going to be late to class," he looked back over his shoulder at Robin, "Goodbye, Robin," he waved happily as he dragged Zoro out into the busy hall.

"Let me go," Zoro said pulling his arm back as they began the descent of the moving stairs. Oddly enough, he had waiter until this point to pull back. Maybe he was acknowledging his tendency to get lost even in a place he had been to every day.

"Fine," Sanji let go as the stairs touched down at the next level, "You're on the right floor anyway." Zoro was off to charms and he always followed Sanji down as the blond made his way to herbology. He always seemed to get lost without someone to guide him. Lucky for him, he had Sanji in a majority of his classes, although he didn't seem to appreciate it much. Ungrateful bastard. "Do I get a thank you?" Sanji asked.

"No," Zoro said through gritted teeth as he walked off toward class.

Sanji continued down outside and to the greenhouse for herbology. He had mixed feeling about herbology: on one hand he enjoyed learning about eatable plants, on the other he didn't give a shit about the other plants and didn't have any friends in the class.

Next was Defense Against the Dark Arts, which Zoro and Sanji had together. That class always passed quickly. Their teacher, who insisted that they all call him Franky, was a very amusing man. He was the last person one might think would teach the dark arts but he knew what he was talking about. He liked to do a lot of interactive and over the top projects so you were never quite sure what you were getting yourself into when you want through the door.

Later that day, dinner was amazing, although Sanji wished that he could have cooked it himself. He had grown up in a kitchen, learning from the best chef in the fucking world, Zeff. Sanji had been adopted and didn't remember either of his parents, so he had no idea if he had magical parents or not, but Zeff had not known anything of magic when the letter for Sanji came. Sanji had been conflicted about leaving because that meant that he couldn't learn to cook with Zeff, but it turned it that they could make up for it in the summer. Sanji worked his ass off in the summer time and all that work eventually paid off. He kicked ass at cooking.

At dinner's end Brook, one of the many ghosts in the school, floated by them with a soft; "Yohoho," only to be passed through by Nami as she walked over to the Gryffindor table and held up a letter. "Okay, boys," she said, "Who wants to take this to the owlery for me?"

"I will, Nami dear!" Sanji said excitedly, reaching a hand out for the letter.

Zoro rolled his eyes calling Sanji an idiot. Nami instantly turned her gaze to him, "You're just jealous that Sanji could do it faster than you."

"He could not," Zoro scoffed.

Nami gave him a sweet smile, "Sure he could, you have all that muscle to lug around, it takes up weight."

Zoro's pride flared up, causing him to defend himself, "My muscles only make me stronger."

"Prove it." Nami smirked. He could see what she was doing, but his competitive side couldn't just let it go, Sanji would be on him about it forever.

"Fine," he made a grab for the letter.

"Not so fast, I have a better idea." She duplicated the letter with a brush of her wand and handed one to each of them. "First one to get it send out is the real man," she grinned, "Now, go!"

The two raced off the through the hallways and up the stairs, out to the owlery. They made it to the structure at about the same time, but Sanji was the one who managed to locate and capture Nami's bird first.

"I am the real man!" Sanji proclaimed triumphantly as he watched the owl fly off.

"Whatever, Nami only wanted to get us to send her letter for her," Zoro grumbled as he made for the door, Sanji following in his footsteps.

"You're just bitter because you lost," he chuckled.

As they were walking down the way back into the castle, Zoro stopped to look out over the grounds. He had stopped so abruptly that Sanji bumped into him. When the blond saw that Zoro wasn't paying attention, he tried to see what he was looking at. Night was starting to fall, it was almost curfew.

"I want to go down to the lake," Zoro finally announced.

"Are you crazy? You're not still stuck up on the squid thing, are you?" Sanji asked incredulously.

"What, are you scared?"

"Of course not." He was a brave Gryffindor, he wasn't afraid of anything.

"Then come with me."

"Right now?"

"Yes, right now. I formally challenge you for the honor of calling yourself man. You just got that title, don't make me revoke it already," Zoro threatened.

"What do you challenge me to?" Sanji asked wearily.

"Going for a swim in the lake. I bet I can last longer than you." Zoro jabbed him in the chest for emphasis.

Sanji brushed the hand away, "Bullshit, there no way you'll last longer than me."

"We'll see."

"We aren't going to get the others?"

"No, this is happening right here, right now. Well, actually over there," he pointed to the lake,"but still."

Sanji paused for a moment to consider, "Alright, fine, fuck it. Let's do this, I'll kick you're ass."

Zoro grinned before he started to descend the stairs toward the castle, at the bottom jumped over the side, casting arresto momentum before he could hit the ground. Sanji followed his example and landed with even more grace.

They then began their trek toward the lake in focused silence. By the time they made it to the shoreline it was pitch black.

"Ready to chicken out?" Zoro smirked.

"As if, I'm going to totally own your ass at staying in longer," Sanji assured him.

"Great, then take your clothes off," Zoro said as he began to remove his trousers.

Sanji had hesitated, not because he was afraid of the lake, more that he was uncomfortable removing his clothes around Zoro. It wasn't like they would be that different physically, they were both guys after all. Even if Zoro was a lot more decked out with muscles and had a tendency to distract Sanji more than he cared to admit. Nothing weird about that, but best not to think about it. After a pause or about two seconds, he swallowed his nervousness and started to strip.

Then they were standing in front of the lake.

"Ready to go?" Zoro asked, hooking a thumb around the waistband of his underwear, preparing to pull them off.

Sanji's heart picked up a beat or two but he forced himself to remain calm, "Hang on, are we going to do this naked?" he asked in a normal sounding voice.

"Yeah, were you going to do this in your underwear?" The idea seemed to confuse Zoro greatly.

"Yeah, we can just dry them when we get out, no problem. "

"Are you uncomfortable being naked around me?" asked Zoro, cocking his head to the side like he was trying to see the situation from a different perspective.

"I just don't want to add skinny dipping with Zoro under the pale moonlight to the list of things that I've done in my life," Sanji sighed, although part of him whisper that this statement may have been a bit of a lie.

"It would be an honor for you to add that," Zoro told him indignantly.

"Also," Sanji said, "with all that might be out in that lake, I don't want to deal with it while my dick is exposed."

Understanding flooded across Zoro's face, "Okay, I guess that's s fair point. No skinny dipping then." He removed his hand from his waist band, much to Sanji's relief. Or was it disappointment?

"Don't sounds so disappointed," Sanji commenter on Zoro's inflection, which had dipped downward slightly.

"I wasn't!" Zoro cried defensively.

"You sounded like it."

"Shut up!" Zoro jumped into the water, disturbing the surface enough to send ripples through the whole lake. It was deep even along the edge, well below his range of touching and there was a really creepy patch of seaweed along the shore that tickled at his legs like creepy little fingers. "Come on in, scardy brow!" he taunted Sanji.

Sanji took a deep breath, set his wand next to his clothes and made for the shore. He stared out over the water for a second before jumping out into the lake. The water was cold, but it still held some of the warmth from summer, school had only be in for about a month, so it wasn't completely freezing yet.

Sanji swam over to Zoro, "Ready to back out, loser," he grinned, although he was resisting the urge to shiver.

"Not a chance," Zoro's eyes gleamed in the darkness, shining with the same determination to win that Sanji knew his own eyes held.

Together, they swam out toward the center of the lake, both were strong swimmers and had no trouble matching their speeds. Once they passed the patch of seaweed it wasn't quite so terrifying either. That is, if they didn't think too hard about what might be underneath them because knowing this place it could be literally anything.

About a fourth of the way to the center they paused to taunt each other.

"We're halfway to the halfway," Zoro said, maintaining his spot as he floated there in the cold water.

"I'll have you know I'm part fish," Sanji told him, "I'm a manfish."

"A mermaid?" Zoro tried to correct him.

"No, I'm a manfish," Sanji said in a wounded tone, "It's completely different, geez, racist."

"Right, sorry," Zoro rolled his eyes swimming closer to the blond.

"You should be sorry, my people don't take kindly to that sort of thing, asshole."

"I guess they probably wouldn't take me drowning you very well either," the marimo sighed sadly.

"Oh, was that the plan? You were going to get me out here and drown me where no one could see. I mean it's not like there are any video cameras around. It's not a bad plan, but I will fight you to the bitter end."

"That's right, I came out here to murder you," Zoro said sarcastically.

"You'll never get away with it, you fiend!" Sanji exclaimed dramatically, splashing water into Zoro's direction.

Zoro retaliated with an even bigger splash. What a bastard. Sanji, obviously couldn't take that, so he had to splash Zoro back. Soon enough they were splashing and flailing around like idiots. Sanji was laughing so hard he inhaled a lung full of water and started coughing. Zoro grabbed his arms and pulled them out farther. Why had this seemed like such a bad idea before? They were actually having a lot of fun.

They swam at a more leisurely pace, talking as they went. This was actually kind of nice in a weird sort of way, that is, until Sanji felt something brush his leg. He reflexively flinched back, his mind automatically leaped to the worst possible idea before his logical thinking kicked in. Whatever had brushed him felt small, "Agh! A fish just brushed my leg." A fish seemed the most likely choice, they would be bold in a place like this where there were no people to scare them off."

"Scared of a little fish?" Zoro snorted as he turned back to look at Sanji, although it was too dark to see much of anything.

"No, I was just warning you that there are bold fish in the areaaaaAAAH!" Something thin and tentacle like wrapped around his leg, several tentacle things actually, it was like having an octopus around his leg.

"What!?" Zoro asked in alarm.

"There's something stuck to my fucking leg!" he tried to shove it off and felt a squishy, stumpy body. As he tried to detach the thing another attached. "There's another one!"

Zoro grabbed his arm to keep him upright as he struggled against the things as they pulled him downward.

"Fuck," Sanji swore as he felt more of the things brush past him, some attaching to him and some to Zoro, "Can you cast spells without your wand?"

"Not really." Of course he couldn't, that would be too convenient.

Sanji tried to reply but for a moment he was pulled under. He sputtered as Zoro hauled him back to the surface. "Shit, fine. Accio wand." He held up a hand in preparation to catch it but nothing came. "God dammit, accio wand!" After a pause full of desperate pleading there was a whizzing sound and Sanji's veela hair wand found its place in his had once again. He aimed it at the thing on his left leg, "Stupify!" he shouted. There was a flash of light and the thing went limp, falling away. He took out each one in that way. His adrenaline was pumping so hard he wasn't sure what the damage done to his legs was.

"We should head back," Sanji heaved as Zoro mostly kept him up. It suddenly seemed like they were in the middle of the ocean, the shore was just so far away.

They made their way back very slowly. Every so often another thing would attack them. Sanji was by then convinced that they were grindylows but it was impossible to tell in this dark water. Nasty little fuckers.

They were finally at the shore line when Sanji felt something brush his stomach. Instinctively he flinched back thinking it was another grindylow, but it felt too big for that. A giant tentacle wrapped it's way around Sanji's mid section and legs, squeezing that air from his lungs.

Instead of dragging him completely under, the tentacle hesitated for a moment then started dragging him backward toward an area of squirming water where it could be assumed that the giant squid was located. As Sanji was dragged back, Zoro scramble from the water toward his things. He fumbled in the darkness for his wand, cursing himself for being so disorganized. When he finally found the object of his desire he pointed it out toward the squid even as he jumped into the water after it. "Stupify!" The squid went slack and Sanji started to float down with it, totally spent. Zoro grabbed him before he could drown and dragged him to shore.

Both were breathing heavily, lungs burning and limbs aching. "I was in the water longer," Sanji finally managed.

Zoro gaped at him, "That's not fair, I had to get out so I could save your stupid ass!"

"It was your one chance to get rid of me," Sanji smiled.

"Yeah, Luffy would have been upset if I let you die."

"Sure," Sanji laughed, groaning as he sat up. He still had his wand in a death grip. "Lumos." His wand lit at the end to show the state of his torn up legs. "Fuck." They were covered in splotchy sucker marks from hip to toe and he was bleeding in several places from where they had ripped his skin. The pain was starting to seep in through the coldness and the adrenalin rush, making him shake.

Zoro made a grab for his own wand but realized that he didn't have it with him. He had dropped it in his effort to retrieve Sanji. Well, that sucked.

"I dropped my wand in the water," Zoro said, sounding resigned. He would have to swim back out for it. He made to stand up but Sanji stopped him.

"Accio Zoro's wand," the cook said with a little flick of his wand. Sanji made an effort to catch the piece of wood as it zoomed toward his head, but he missed and it bounced off his forehead. "Fucking hell, why does the universe hate me?!"

Zoro ignored him, trying to remember a spell to heal wounds. "Ferula," there was a spark and Sanji felt a stinging sensation shoot up his leg.

"Fuck! What did you do?"

"I think I messed something up, I've always sucked at healing spells. I'll try again."

"Don't-" he tried again and a more intense shock hit Sanji

"Shit, I think your medical care would be better if you literally just kissed it better!" Sanji shouted angrily.

Zoro gave him a put out look before he leaned down and pressed his lips high up on Sanji's thigh, a little too high up and a little too much to the inside.

Sanji was immediately put on edge, "Woah! That- that was way too high to be comfortable with! Correction, anything would have been too much, why-" Sanji objected but Zoro's smirked and pushed Sanji's illuminated wand up higher to cast a better light on Sanji's distressed face.

"Is that a blush I see?" he asked, thoroughly amused.

"No, it's not!" Sanji shouted, yanking away his wand, "I mean, it's a blush of mortification!"

"Nah, I don't think so," Zoro leaned in closer to Sanji's face. Sanji leaned back.

"Stop- Zoro- what are mmmff-" Sanji was cut off by a pair of cold, wet lips on his. The contact lasted about three seconds.

"Better?" Zoro asked after he withdrew.

"Go fuck yourself-" Sanji was cut off again when Zoro decided that he didn't feel like listening to his reply. That time there was actual movement involved. Sanji was annoyed but he obliged, part of him was elated that he was in this situation, the other part was telling him to go throw himself back into the lake.

When Zoro pulled away Sanji sulked, quickly moving his wand and using a spell to bandage at least some of his cuts, he could have Chopper do the rest later. Or he could not have Chopper do it and just suck it up.

When he was done with the bandaging, he and Zoro started back up to the castle. They didn't say anything to one another, Zoro because he wasn't sure what exactly to say, Sanji because he was decidedly ignoring the Japanese man. They progressed up the hill slowly, on bloody and painful legs.

When they actually got up to the castle they had a few options, they could find a way to sneak up one of the towers or they could try to sneak in the front door, or they could sleep outside. Every way they thought about sneaking inside the threat of being caught was especially large. it wasn't like they had an invisibility cloak to hide under, they would have to dodge Filch on their own.

"Fuck this," Zoro said as e stated up the stone castle, "Do you wanna just sleep in the bushes until the doors open?"

Sanji was already sagging with tiredness, "Sure."

They made their way over to some of the taller plants that decorated the quart yard and laid down. It was a lot more comfortable than either of them would have thought. Laying side by side, the two fell asleep.

When Sanji woke up it was early morning and there were people milling around the yard. Seeing this, he elbowed Zoro awake. They both rose from the bushes, Sanji dragging Zoro who refused to get up. They got a few strange looks up Sanji ignored them and went straight into the great hall, where people we starting to get breakfast.

None of their friends were in yet so Sanji took his seat to wait while Zoro put his head down an fell asleep.

"Where were you guys last night?" Luffy whined when he finally made it down to breakfast with Usopp. "Did you have an adventure without me?"

"We would never think of it," Sanji said, rubbing his tired eyes.

"Sanji, what happen to your forehead?" Luffy asked, tilting he head to look at the blond strangely. Sanji picked up a reflective plate and looked down at his reflection to find a nice circular bruise on his forehead. Zoro, having sensed someone making fun of Sanji, looked up and nearly peed himself laughing when he saw it. When he had recovered to the best of his ability he grabbed Sanji's face and kissed the bruise on his head, which earned him a swift shove from his seat. He continued to laugh just as hard on the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there's already a Harry Potter zosan story out there, but I couldn't help myself. Harry Potter is my childhood :) I think I just wanted to hurt sanji :3
> 
> I was terrified I wouldn't be able to update because my internet was down, but it's better now D: I can't remember if I edited this, so if there are a lot of mistakes that's why.
> 
> Poor Franky, defense against the dark arts is totally cursed :(
> 
> Thanks.


	4. Spies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spies.

Sanji strolled up to the scanner, stepping through the metal detector and waiting to be moved along. He got the all clear and moved along to the next check. There were three checks to get through and he went through them everyday. He made sure to say hi to Brook on his way in, as he always did. Brook was his favorite security guard after all and there wasn't any need to let him get lonely. Sanji offered the tall man a wave, as he could not get over to see him today because he was a little late but Brook would understand and he waved back graciously.

Going through the checks was always annoying, but they were necessary to make sure that nothing's harmful could be taken into, and at the end of the day out of, the facility. It was more the lower layers of the facility that they were concerned with keeping under strict protection than the upper layers. The upper layers were for boring things like paperwork. Personally, Sanji found his job far more interesting. As he passed the security check, in his usual calm manner, he took a deep breath and smiled. He did ever so much enjoy his job.

Entering the elevator on the far sit of the room, Sanji pressed the furthest button down and entering the proper security code to the side of the numbers. He was taking a chance by using the elevator, if someone got in with him they would have to go to their floor first, only certain people were allowed on the bottom floor and usually Sanji didn't like having to wait for so many people in order to get to where he needed to go, but he was in a good mood today so he would roll the dice.

As he stood there waiting, another person approached and entered the elevator. He'd seen the guy around on the bottom, but they'd never worked together. He wasn't someone a person was likely forget, not with that green hair. As the man got into the elevator, he clicked the bottom button and put in the code. They wouldn't let him through if he didn't put the code in as well.

When he was all clear he stepped back and they waited side by side for the doors to close. They slowly slid shut. Great, an awkward two person elevator situation. This was why Sanji didn't ride the elevator, something bad always had to happen. He must have insulted the elevator gods at some point in his life, although he couldn't imagine how.

He waited, the silence grew oppressive. He couldn't take it. "So, you work for the organic chemistry people, right?" Sanji asked awkwardly.

The man nodded, "and you work for the biochemists."

"Yep," Sanji said shifting back on his heels.

There was a long pause. "I'm going to be working with your unit," the man said idly.

"Really? Well, my team is pretty great, so hopefully we'll all get along nicely." God, the awkwardness of pleasantries. Sanji already knew that his team was joining up with the organic chemists, he was the team leader after all.

"Yep..."

Was it possible for silence to be physically painful, because that was how it felt. If there were a window Sanji might have been tempted to throw himself out of it, but an open elevator window in a place like this didn't sound like a very good idea. It would probably result in a few lost fingers or noses, but only the fingers or noses of some really dumb people so it probably wouldn't be so bad

Thankfully, the doors slid open to let the two escape the horribleness. Unfortunately, they were both going to the exact same place. Most of both teams were already there, chatting absently with one another. Sanji wasn't particularly close with any of them, but they were alright for the most part. That was the thing about this job, everyone was too pleasant with each other. He grew up in a restaurant full of big angry men, he needed the excitement sometimes to remind him of home. He wasn't about to get that here. In this place physical aggression toward coworkers was labeled a bad thing.

Sanji started the briefing off, Zoro didn't seem to mind much. He looked pretty bored. They would be trying to devise a to get human skin cells to regenerate at an increased rate. They had a subject that they were working on, but try weren't the only project running down in this place.

Once Sanji was done giving their summery of the day, they needed someone to go get samples from the subject to figure out what they needed to do, or rather how they should go about doing it. Sanji liked their subject, so he volunteered to go.

"I'll do it," Sanji said, grabbing the supplies to take the sample.

"I'm going with you," Zoro said, not bothering to wait for a response, which was a little annoying, but Sanji took a deep breath and let it go. They made the short trip to the holding area. It wasn't very crowded, it seemed that no one was much interested in the lab rat today.

Luffy looked to be in a good mood when they approved, although, he was rarely in a bad mood. He was sitting at his table, playing on a tablet. Obviously, the thing didn't give him access to anything that could contact the outside world, it was just to keep him entertained. At least they cared enough to give him that. Sanji pressed the button to open one side of the airlock, he and Zoro stepped inside. He waited for that door to close and opened the next one.

Luffy looked up as they entered, a smile lighting up his face, "Sanji! Zoro! You two are here together!? You guys should go get Usopp and Franky, then it would really be a party. Oh, and that security guard, Brook."

"Hey, Luffy," Sanji greeted him, "We have to get some samples from you."

"Aw man, am I going to have to get more shots?" Luffy frowned, he was tired of being a pincushion.

"We need to draw some blood," Zoro said.

"Are they going to do more tests today?" Luffy asked, a tired edge in his voice. Usually, tests included an injection of an unknown substance, then they had the subject preform various tasks to observe the results. Some were harmful, with horrible side effects. Others weren't so bad. They were testing a range of substances with an array of intentions. Most of them were failures, but even a failure taught them something important. All it taught Luffy was how horrible side effects could 'd had to revive him twice. Once when his throat closed up and another time when his heart stopped.

There were other subjects in the area, but they were too far for Luffy to exchange duologue with them; his existence was loneliness interspersed with experiments.

"They'll probably come by later today," Sanji frowned, "How is that rash coming along?"

Luffy pushed up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal an angry looking rash. "I think it's getting smaller but it looks darker. Do you know what that means?"

Sanji shook his head, "I'm not a medical doctor, Luffy. Now, give me your arm." He took the little needle and stuck it into Luffy's soft flesh, pulling up the red liquid.

Sanji pocked the sampled and was about to turn when Luffy started talking. "You guys are still trying to get my hat back, right?" he asked seriously.

Luffy had a straw hat that he always used to wear before he was in this place. They had taken it away, along with all his other things. Sanji tried to talk with the supervisor when he could about getting it back, but he had a sneaking suspicion that they had burned it.

"I'm doing what I can," Sanji sighed and Zoro nodded as well. Not much for words that one. "We have to get back to our team," Sanji said apologetically.

Luffy let out a whine, "Aw, take me with you."

"You know we can't." Sanji found this whole situation more than a little heartbreaking. He happened to glance over to Zoro and see that his expression had not changed, then again, neither had Sanji's.

"I know," Luffy pouted.

"We'll try not to fuck this batch up," Zoro promised as he started toward the door.

Sanji followed suit, offering a little wave, "Later, Luffy."

"Bye guys, come back soon!"

The door slammed shut behind them as the next door opened. Sanji had the blood with him. He glared over at Zoro, he hadn't done anything while they were there. Why did he even want to come?

"I could have just come on my own," Sanji said, unable to just let it go.

Zoro shrugged, "I don't like hanging around the teams too much with nothing to do. Plus, I like going to see Luffy."

Sanji looked to him in surprise, it wasn't a good idea to go around saying things like that. If one of the advisors found out they would fire you and then proceed to bury what remains of your life. "You shouldn't say things like that."

"I won't tell if you don't," Zoro said, holding Sanji's gaze.

For a moment Sanji saw a flicker of something in his eyes but in the next it was gone and they were walking back to their group, ready to start on some hardcore, serious science. They had to make sure Luffy came out of this okay after all.

XxxX

Two days later, they were hitting some snags in their work. As it turned out, Zoro and Sanji disagreed on everything there was to disagree about. Every chemical Zoro wanted to use, Sanji could think of an alternative he liked better. Sanji was beginning to thing that their bickering was starting to scare their team, but on the up side, it also lead to the both of them being determined to get the best results possible. They pushed each other and that was a good and bad thing.

Although they tried to keep their voices down and remains civil for their overseers, they oftentimes came within moments of physical confrontation. They had yet to hit each other though, they both had careers to look out for after all. But it was just so hard.

"Oh yeah, mister genetically modified hair," Sanji was trying to keep his voice steady, they were arguing over how their new substance should be administered, "Your parents must have been richie rich to afford a designer baby, too bad they didn't have the geneticist work on your face." Designer babies were a pretty normal thing. At least they were for people with a lot of money. The results were incredible, Zoro's hair was an excellent example of that. It wasn't dyed, so either he was modified or one one his parents was.

"Maybe they were rich. I never knew my parents, so I hope you feel like a dick." Zoro shoved a finger in Sanji's angry face.

Sanji wasn't fazed, "Well, I knew my parents but they died in front of me, so I hope you feel like a dick!" Sanji shouted back. Damn, he raised his voice, they were drawing attention. Sanji looked around, people were staring at them. He took a deep breath and drew a polite look across his face. "I'm sorry, I'm just having an off day," he said rather loudly, trying to turn away the attention they were getting.

"I am sorry too," Zoro said smoothly, he was a better liar than expected. They shook hands and the attention left them.

Work was becoming a more stressful environment with Zoro around. If only there were a way to beat the shit out of him without anyone noticing. If he had the ability to turn invisible he would do it and beat up Zoro secretly. Well, he probably wouldn't do that because it was kind of a dick move to beat someone up while they couldn't see you. Nah, he wanted one on one, man on man action. There was probably a better way to phrase that, the way it came out sounded a little too sexual for his liking. Not that Zoro wasn't attractive, but- but- but- nothing, he didn't just think those thoughts. Nope, no more of that. He was being stupid again, when he was angry he got irrational and when he got irrational weird stuff happened. Banishing all weird thoughts in: 3,2,1. Banishment complete, all bad thoughts gone.

Sanji realized that he had been daydreaming and got back to work, there was no time to he caught up in his own strange thoughts; he had a very important job to do.

XxxX

It was Sunday and Sanji was at the grocery store, stocking up on food for the week when he nearly ran someone over. He glanced up and recognized Zoro standing there, looking as shocked as him. He was immediately suspicious, what were the chances of running into Zoro out in a place like this. Not very likely, although, stranger things were known to happen.

"Watch where you're going, curly brow," Zoro grumbled, trying to brush past him. Sanji would have allowed it if it hadn't been for that last comment. Now, outside of work, he could have an outburst, at least a small one.

"Don't call me curly brow, moss head," Sanji said through clenched teeth.

Zoro stopper and turned back to him, "Do you really want to do this?"

"I think I do."

"In the middle of a grocery store?"

"Okay, maybe not in the middle of a grocery store, but I still want to do it. It's not like you have anything worth losing in your cart." The cart was filled with junky foods, which very much annoyed Sanji. It made him want to kidnap the idiot and make him eat good food, maybe he was just weird like that.

"My food is fine, thank you."

"That's a lie,"

"Shut up, get out of my way."

"No, I don't think I want to," Sanji crossed his arms.

"I will go outside right now if you want to throw down. I'll break you, blonde," Zoro threatened.

That was an incredibly tempting offer. Sanji glanced down at his watch and cursed. "Okay, while I'd love to kick your ass right now, I have places to be."

"Like where?"

"Like none of your business." Sanji started to move away.

"I bet you're just too scared to face me," Zoro said smugly.

Sanji stopped dead. He wanted to turn and kick that idiot at that very moment but he stopped himself. He had things to do, he had to leave if he wanted to be on schedule, the schedule was everything. So, he started walking again, not looking back.

He finished his shopping and went through check out without seeing Zoro again. That was a very good things because it had taken all of his willpower to walk away.

On his way home, Sanji went out to a nearby park to have a walk. He walked for a few minutes before he sat on an empty bench for a time, leaving behind a pen cap. He was on his phone while he was siting, he looked casual, he blended in. When he went to leave he didn't walk straight to his car, he took a while. Like he was delaying his time by walking around.

When he left for work the next day he noticed a crumpled cover of a magazine out in the parking lot, near his car. Everything was set up; good.

He waited three days, the designated time, before he made any move. The lead up was always stressful. He drove out to a bike trial, obviously bringing his bike with him.

When he was in a part of the trail in the woods, not around any buildings, he dropped a piece of wood onto the ground. It looked normal, but it was hollow in the middle and the cavity inside held an absurd amount of information. Information for a foreign organization.

He'd been doing this since a year after he started at this job. That's why he actually wanted this job in the first place. Sure, he had been born in this country, but that didn't mean that was where his loyalties laid.

The organization that Sanji operated under at the lab was not oppressive per se, but there were a lot of shady deals going on behind the scenes, Luffy was evidence of that.

Sanji's first exposure to this sort of thing had been through his adopted father, Zeff, who had escaped from a government installation like the one he currently worked for.

At this place they had been trying to make it so that he could regrow his limbs; an inthralling idea. He had been chosen for this endeavor because he had at the time been a rather notorious criminal. No one was likely to miss him and if they did they weren't going to speak up about it.

In order to do the tests they wanted, they had to first cut off a limb. One of his feet were taken, then the testing began. They tried all sorts of things, nothing ever worked. On one occasion the substance caused a reaction so violent that they had to remove up to his knee.

He spent nearly three years in that facility, then one day he found his opportunity to escape and did so. He would never tell Sanji exactly how he did it. Sanji suspected that it was either paranoid reasons or because it was a rather gruesome tale. Or maybe it was a combination of both. Either way, Zeff had gotten out and managed to escape into a larger city, which was where he met Sanji. At that time Sanji had just been a little kid living out on the streets, scavenging for what he could. His parents had both been killed in the epidemic of two years before.

An outbreak, one probably created in one of those shady labs, had swept through the county. It caused horrible necrosis, the skin decaying off the bones and extremely high fever, not to mention the horrible coughing. People shambled through the streets like zombies. It had gotten so bad that once people displayed symptoms they were to be shot on sight.

When Sanji's mother started showing symptoms they did their best to cover it up and his father quickly caught it as well. The symptoms were very difficult to cover up, thus they were soon found out. Upon this revelation both Sanji's parents were shot, trying to get their son away from the loaded guns of the angry mob that had formed outside of their house. In the end Sanji didn't make it inside, he ran away after his parents had been shot in front of him.

From then on he lived in the streets. He wasn't the only one. There were lots of kids without parents from the outbreak and living in the steers was hard, he picked up a nasty smoking habit, but that wasn't as bad as the things the other kids did.

The epidemic lasted about a year before a vaccine was discovered. Sanji remained in the streets until he he saw a blond man with one leg laying in an alley. At first, Sanji had been tempted to just walk away, but instead he had poked at the man.

"Oi, what are you doing here?" He had asked, he saw lots of people like this. Nothing he said would probably be very interesting.

"Go away, brat." The man looked gaunt, like he had been through a lot and without much to eat. His stomach growled angrily.

Sanji knew that feeling, he had spent many days and nights with that emptiness and he wouldn't wish it upon his worst enemy. He took out the granola bar he had been given by one of the nice shop owners earlier that day and broke it in half. "You can have some of this," he offered.

Zeff looked at Sanji for a long time before turning away. "You're a growing kid, you need it more than me."

Sanji took one half and broke it again, "How about this?"

Zeff narrowed his eyes and said nothing.

"If you don't talk it I'm just going to leave it here," Sanji said, annoyed.

Zeff held out his hand and accepted the quarter of Sanji's granola bar. They stuck together after that. Sanji managed to keep them afloat until Zeff was well enough to function. After that it had been easier, Zeff got a job and things were on the up.

Eventually, Zeff started up the Baratie when he was sure he wasn't being tracked. He never outright talked about his captivity in the public, he didn't even like to mention it in general, but he warned Sanji about it because he felt it was important.

In school, Sanji had done well in the sciences, which he chose as his career later, biochemistry to be precise. He had advanced through this career path and had eventually been offered a job at a very secretive installation. Sanji took this as an opportunity. He would rise to a trusted position and then he would start leaking secrets to those it may concern.

He had actually been approached a few times by people who wanted him to spy for them, but he had one particular organization in mind and was very grateful when they finally came forward to ask him for information. The group he gathered information was a sort of social justice organization, they dealt a lot with human rights issues. The organization was trying to remove Luffy and take his case to another country to do a big expose for all the world to see, but it took time and a lot of patience; years of building up a solid case. They didn't want any doubts about it.

He had to leave signals and wait for signals in return in order to make the drops. It could be stressful at times but at least he felt like he was doing the right thing. More recently he had been working in a more active sense. Luffy had only recently become the main focus of the lab's interest after the last specimen had to be terminated. The scientists involved weren't supposed to be in contact with him, lest they become attached, but Sanji had to get the samples and Luffy liked him, so, there you have it. Being this attached, he didn't want Luffy to end up like the last guy; a spasming mess of jabbering nonsense. He had to wear a funnel collet because he kept trying to tear off his own skin with his teeth.

Sanji proceeded home, content with how the day had been carried out. He made himself a lovely dinner, as he always did, and went to bed happily.

Sanji was dragged from sleep and his bed by one strong, gloved hand. He scrambled, searching for ground to put his feet under and found nothing.

His minds was reeling, speculating as to what must have happened. They had discovered him, he must have made a mistake. He fucked something up, that had to be it. There was no other way they could know unless someone higher up sold him out. Dammit, he should have been more careful. What the hell would James Bond do right now? Fuck, he'd never seen a James Bond movie. All he could see when he pictured James Bond was a fancy looking suit and that wasn't very helpful at the moment.

When he finally got a grip on his situation he realized that there was only one other person in the room, not a whole team full. The man in his room was wearing a hat to cover his unnatural hair and had an angry scowl on his face.

"You," Sanji managed to croak as he glared down at Zoro's face.

"Me," Zoro replied gruffly, "Just-

Sanji didn't wait for him to speak, he kicked out, striking him in the gut hard enough to make him let go. Then he rolled away from his bed, toward his door. He had to get out, leave the country, but they probably already had him surrounded. The swat team was probably already lined up outside, just waiting to fill him with holes. At least he would be remembered going down as a sexy spy.

He could hardly believe this was actually happening. He was yanked back by his shirt and dragged to the ground where he was pinned after much struggling.

"Just listen!" Zoro said through grit teeth and he fought to keep Sanji down, it was by no means easy. Sanji was about as slippery as a snake and about a million times more likely to kick him in the face.

"No!" Sanji said trying to knee him in the groin but not managing it.

"I'm on your side here!" Zoro shout-whispered in exasperation.

"No, you aren't," Sanji said stubbornly. There was no way that could be possible.

"I'm trying to be, if you'll just give me two seconds to explain myself, god damn."

Sanji let up on his fighting a little bit. Either way he was fucked, so he suppose that listening couldn't do too much harm really. "Fine, go."

"I'm working for an external party as well," Zoro said, very glad that Sanji wasn't fighting. He probably couldn't have held out for much longer, not that he would have admitted that.

Sanji's eyes immediately narrowed in suspicion, "Why would you tell me that?"

Zoro looked him dead in the eye, "Because now we have a trust. You know about me and I know about you. If either of us tells we'll both be dragged down."

"Why?" Sanji was stunned, now he wasn't moving at all.

"I want to work together."

"Who do you work for?"

"Luffy's brother paid me an absurd amount of money to get him back."

Sanji was surprised by this, "I thought they only took people who no one will miss."

"Ace died a few years ago but I promised that I would always have Luffy's back and should the need arise, I had the means to help him out."

"Huh, what a lucky guy, but this didn't make me trust you any more. You could just be working to get me uncovered."

"You could be doing the same thing, but here I am."

Sanji made an unhappy sound and glared at the man still pinning him down.

"I have the best strategist money can buy working with me," Zoro said. Sometimes he wondered if Robin was actually some form of God or something, she was that good.

Sanji stared at him for a long time. "Okay," he finally said. He was already doomed if Zoro was an informer. He would say yes for now and he would discuss this with Nami, the organization leader he word with, later.

"Well, good then," Zoro looked puzzled, like he hadn't really expected to get this far. He stood up and held out a hand, pulling Sanji up. "I'll just let you get back to bed now."

"Yeah, thanks. How did you get in here anyway?"

"You left a window unlocked so I took out the screen and crawled through. You should be more careful, someone might break."

"Don't patronize me, asshole, just get out of here." Sanji threw a pen at him.

"Fine, I'm leaving. We won't speak of this again."

"Then how will we work together?"

"I'll give you my number tomorrow at work and we can go from there."

"Won't that be a little suspicious?"

"Nah, we can just pretend that we're becoming friends or something, I don't know, we can deal with that later. I'm leaving, it's too late for this."

"You're the one who broke into my house," Sanji reminded him.

"Shut up and goodnight."

"Night."

Zoro slithered back out Sanji's window and off into the night.

XxxX

Work was just the same as usual, they couldn't appear overly friendly toward each other, they had to build up toward a friendship little by little. The first step was texting and that was how Sanji got Zoro's number.

A few days after this incident, Sanji managed to get into contact with the person he made the drops to to advise of his current position.

"Could you seduce him?" Nami asked all too seriously. They were out near an abandoned house on a country road. They were set up so it looked like Sanji was helping Nami fix a flat tire.

Sanji was horrified, "Could I what?"

"You heard me, I want to give him as much reason not to turn us in as possible," she shrugged as if it was no big deal.

"But I'm not-"

"Doesn't matter."

"And I don't know if he's-"

"Find out."

Sanji looked helpless.

Nami sighed, "Sanji, I'm just protecting our interests here and I want to make sure you're doing all you can. Do you think you can do this for me?"

Sanji took in a deep breath, "Yes," he said confidently although he wasn't so sure. A friendship he could maybe set up, but beyond that was something he didn't want to mess around with. But Nami was directly asking him to do something, he couldn't just ignore that. He would try and if things didn't work out than that would be great. He was the bureaucratic information dealing kind of spy, not the honey pot kind.

James Bond would do it. Or not, James Bond was supposed to be super heterosexual so maybe not. He would have to channel his inner gay James Bond to get through this shit. Oh god, this wasn't going to be fun, why couldn't he settle for a normal not dangerous job like being a chef? Because he liked to live on the edge, hopefully he just wouldn't fall off that edge like a dumbass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could have made this a sexy honey pot spy thing, but that's not what I'm all about. Realistic spies are more fun. I used to pretend to be a spy. Halfway through I realized how boring this was but I was like: too late now :/ so, I'm really sorry.
> 
> Sanji and spying makes me think of "bombshell blonds" by Owl City.
> 
> Thanks.


	5. Aliens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aliens

Zoro loved space. It was as simple as that.

When he was a kid, after he had finished a long day of training at the dojo, he would stare up at the starry sky above him and let his mind wander. It all amazed him, the massive empty void, the brightly burning spheres, the endless possibilities. Whenever he was able to, he would get books on space from the library.

When he was nine, reading a book on star distances, he read something that always stuck with him. It wasn't an especially important fact, it didn't have any really significant about it, it was just something that stood out to him the way things sometimes did.

There was this woman, Kuina, who worked in the Harvard Collage observatory as a human computer of sorts, before they had actual computers. These human computers were women, who were not allowed to work with the instruments the men were, even though though they were educated. They would review pictures of stars in the sky and calculate their brightness.

Kuina figured out how to calculate the distance, size and brightness of a star by looking at it's variations over time. She published her findings and was not given attention at first. Then they were used in calculations by other great scientists, like Edwin Hubble in his discovery of the universe's expansion.

In 1924, they tried to award her with a Nobel prize, but she had died of cancer three years earlier and you can't give the Nobel prize to a dead person.

This woman jumpstarted modern discoveries of the astronomical nature and so few people knew who she was because she was a woman working in the basement of on observatory. She never got to work to her full potential and that really sucked, but strangely enough, Zoro felt like as long as he remembered her then at least someone would. Maybe that was a useless endeavor, there wasn't much point to it. Whether people knew of her or not he legacy lived on in one way or another. Plus, she was dead so it wasn't like she could care either way. Never the less, the tidbit of information stuck around with Zoro and was comforting when he found himself doing something exceedingly tedious, which was very often. If this woman could discover something amazing from so tedious a task as manually mapping stars the he could make something great out of whatever task he had at hand.

Zoro did very well in school, he was determined to get a job studying space and one needs to be at least a little smart for a job like that. He got his bachelors in biology, then his masters, then a Ph.d all by the time he was twenty six, at which point he went to work for the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) Institute as an astrobiologist. An being astrobiologist someone who studies life on earth and the theory of life in space. It was his ultimate dream job.

He started his career off on a good foot, but on January 11, 2014 he got his chance to work on something really special.

XxxX

On the evening of December 29, 2013, in an observatory in Sweden, Nami was writing out a long sting if equations in order to calculate a star's exact location to add to her infinitely growing map of the visible universe, when one of her colleagues burst in.

"Nami," he said excitedly, "we just got a message from SETI, they want us to double check something for them, it sounds big!"

Nami sighed, slightly annoyed at being pulled away from her work, "Alright then, let's see it," she wasn't expecting anything much, nothing should be happening around the earth right now as far as she could tell. They went scheduled for any anomalies for another few weeks.

The telescope was adjusted, pointing to a location not far from Mars. Nami's eyebrows furrowed, "What is that? It can't be a meteor, nothing is scheduled to fly near us anytime soon," she took a closer look, no, this was highly unusual, "I'll run some numbers, but tell SETI that whatever it is, we see it too."

What it was was the beginning of something big.

XxxX

As the object got closer it was determined to be nothing like anyone had ever seen. It didn't appear to be the same shape as any known asteroid or comet. It was disk-like, metal and smooth. It looked deservingly like the typical UFO of any terrible science fiction movie. It was enough to make a lot of UFO enthusiasts very, very excited.

Once the facts were confirmed, the people of the world were alerted. The media was a blaze of wild speculation. The object was predicted to land in the middle of Siberia, that's what Russia gets for being so massive. It worried people, mostly unnecessarily because it was far enough from civilization that not many people would be effected in the least from the landing.

And what a landing it was. The object was about eighty feet across and did not vaporize when it it the atmosphere. A large army of military figures and an even larger army of scientists waited as close as they could safely be to the crash site, overloading with anticipation.

XxxX

Sanji was in quite a predicament. He was inside of an unintentionally stolen ship hurtling toward an unknown planet with no way of stopping.

Okay, back up.

Sanji was born on a planet about 600 lightyears from the earth. On earth this planet was known as Kepler 22b, orbiting the star Kepler 22, part of the constellation Cygnus. It was discovered on May 12, 2009 by the Kepler telescope. This particular exoplanet was about 2.4 times the size of earth and it's yellow star shown at 79 percent the brightness of the sun. It was also a water planet, a few islands in a vast and deep ocean.

To Sanji, this planet was known as North Blue. The people of North Blue had evolved to look quite like humans, despite the astronomical chances of that actually happening. Well, Sanji's species looked human. Unlike on earth, two different sentient species survived the test of time on Sanji's home world. There were the fishmen and then there were the non fishmen. Sanji was, of course, a non fish man.

Sanji did not resemble humans in every way, he had slightly sharper teeth, webbed toes, rougher skin that did not wrinkle in the water, powerful lungs that enabled him to hold his breath for a very long time, a body temperature of 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius), and eyes that shimmered in the way that fish eyes do.

He did not live on North Blue for very long, when he was seven earth years old (which wasn't too far from his age on this planet as one year there was ten months) he stowed away on a landed ship. After being discovered he earned his was by helping in the kitchen, even though the other cooks were not very nice to him.

During his stay on the ship they were attacked by pirates. Sanji had been cutting up carrots when the red alert went off and the ship was fixed to make evasive maneuvers. They did not last long, the other ship was bigger and better equip. Their aft engine was shot out within twenty minutes. Then their ship was boarded, Sanji and the other inhabitance of the ship tried to fight them off, but to no avail. They were cyborgs and one cannot easily deal with cyborgs when they are just a child.

Amidst the chaos Sanji was knocked unconscious. While he was out, the ship's remaining engine started overloading. He would have died there if the leader of the cyborg pirates hadn't dragged him into an escape pod.

They launched into open space and crashed on a large rocky planet. When Sanji was awake again, he found himself staring at a small pile of rations, that had been stored in the pod. The cyborg with the long mustache was outside and must have been hurt judging from all the blood. Sanji stood up and tried to open the door, but the computer alerted him that the air was thin, he needed an oxygen mask. Grabbing the mask and securing onto to his face, he stepped out.

He was immediately hit with the planet's intense gravity. The artificial gravity of the pod had not readied him. He straightened up and looked around. The planet was rocky and empty, he could seen no plants or animals, but they had crashed on what appeared to be a sea shore, so at least they had water if the stored water ran out. There was a mechanism to filter out the salt water for occurrences such as this one. .

He found the pirate sitting not far off, fiddling with the distress beacon.

"Hey," Sanji called out, "What are you doing?"

"Leave me alone, brat. Take that food out of the pod and don't bother me," the blond pirate said with a strong accent. Well, at least they could communicate, it would have sucked if they had a language gap. Something the throwing off the universal translator down here.

The old guy appeared to have lost his leg in the battle. Not that Sanji knew at the time, but he had lost it to one of Sanji's crew mates when he was running for the escape pods. The wound had been closed up by the medical supplies they had, but it was still unpleasant.

Sanji glared at him, he really didn't want to be around this guy anyway, but then he caught sight of the rations bag. It appeared to still have a good deal of food, more than Sanji had been given.

"Why do you get to have so much food?" he asked indignantly.

"Beacaue I'm bigger than you, now leave me alone or I'll come over there and teach you a lesson."

That was not something Sanji wanted and he was tired anyway so he grabbed a sleeping bag and his rations from the pod and went to sleep somewhere else.

They were stuck on that planet for thirty nine days. Thirty nine days of staring up at the sky, the giant red sun glaring down on them and the horrible hunger pains. Sanji spaced out his food the best he could, but he still ran out. He was at his wits end. On the last day he snuck down to the pirate's camp and stole his rations bag, which was still full, only to find that it was really filled with odd ship parts. He had never had anything to eat.

He turned to the old man, "What..."

"You needed it more than me, kid."

Sanji's eyes welled with tears and at that moment the beacon alarm went off, alerting them to an incoming ship. A ship that got them off that hellish rock.

Sanji and Zeff, the former pirate, stuck together after that. They both had a common dream. All Blue, a planet where people from every corner of the universe would come and go as they pleased, they would set up a restaurant there and be happy forever. It was only a legend, but Sanji was sure it was true.

The two bought a small ship, the Baratie, and turned it into a mobile restaurant. Zeff was merciless when it came to teaching Sanji how to cook, he had to work his way up and it was a painful process. They hired a bunch of other chefs to become a part of their crew and suddenly Sanji had a family. And that's how it stayed until Sanji was twenty-nine earth years old.

He was walking around in a large ship that was not his. He did this quite often when he was on break, he just liked to see what sort of ships people had and he had never met the species that was flying it so he though, why not? It wasn't like they were going to notice, he had a little machine that would disrupt any detection device, a gift from one of his many satisfied customers.

He wandered his way to the bridge and noticed a flashing light on one of the consoles. That couldn't be good. He took a closer look and saw that it showed its light flashing above the cargo bay area. Defiantly not good.

He was on his way out when the ship shuddered violently before jumping into warp. Sanji looked up at the display screen to see the prickling white light that came with traveling at light speed, but this felt different. It was going way too fast. Sanji's eyes slowly filled with black spots before he teetered and fell backwards onto the ground.

When he was awake again he was no longer at warp, but he was still moving forward rapidly. He tried to tap some buttons on the console, but the power system was down. He didn't know enough about engines to fix anything. He was stuck.

He wandered around a bit more, glad that the life support system hadn't shut down. The ship seemed to be standard for his sector of the galaxy, with only a few objects he could not identify. He felt bad that he had stolen this ship and he wasn't sure how to explain this when he got back. If he got back. He did visit the cargo bay, the area that had been glowing on the console, but the door had welded itself shut. That was very strange, he had seen a lot of weird things in his time, but never something like this.

It had just been a weird day altogether, he was hurtling toward the unknown in a stolen ship now, but earlier he hadn't even felt like sneaking around. He was in a rather bad mood that morning, Zeff was being a dick and he had a massive headache. Then suddenly he got the urge to sneak on board this ship, so off he went and here he was now. Strange.

Luckily for him, the replicators were still working on the ship, so he had food. Sanji did not like using replicator food, at the Baratie they got weekly shipments of fresh food, replicator food was supposed to taste like normal food, but it seemed off to him. Maybe he just had a better sense of taste than most people.

As days progressed and Sanji did not get any closer to turning the ship around, it became apparent that he was going to crash on a little blue and green planet. Fuck, he hoped that this ship was well built.

XxxX

After the crash a hole was cut in the side of the object with a the use of some heavy machinery. Everyone had to wear biohazard suits and the area was sectioned off from from the outside world. They recovered from the wreckage a body, still alive but unconscious.

The body was shipped to the closest large city to a lab until they could risk a long term transport. Truck loads of equipment was shipped in. Specialists from all over came together in this spot in an odd show of togetherness. How very quaint.

XxxX

When Sanji woke up his eyes zoomed in and out if focus, when he adjusted he became aware that he was laying in a bed in a room with cream colored walls. On the left side of the room there was a large glass window where he could see a figure on the other side of the divide. This figure was staring at him with wide eyes and talking into a small rectangular object, presumably a communications device. A few minutes later more people rushed in.

One of these people was a woman with blue hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. She stepped forward, picking up a microphone and lifted her right hand saying a word that Sanji could not understand, but he guessed that it was a greeting so he mimicked her and said, "Good day, my dear," in his own language, into a similar microphone.

She grinned at him and pointed at herself, "Vivi," she said clearly.

"Sanji," He replied.

As far as Sanji could figure, Vivi was a linguist, there to teach him how to speak their language before he talked to anyone that could help him out or whatever they were planning to do with him. He desperately hoped that this wasn't on of those shitty warlike plants, or one that sacrificed people like him. Sanji had always liked learning how to speak in different tongues, he knew many different languages. They ran into many different people on the Baratie and it just, so happened that Sanji had a great infinity for words.

Just then, another person came in, he was much younger looking than the other people in the room. A boy with curly brown hair and innocent eyes. Vivi pointed at him and said, "Doctor Chopper."

After their introduction, Vivi brought out a tablet and showed Sanji pictures in order to ask him questions, like: is there any pain? (A person doubled over) How do you feel? (Picking from a series of emotion faces) Are you comfortable? (A person looking content). Chopper listened intently as she retrieved this information. He was part of the team studying the pathogens that Sanji had brought down with him and he wanted to make sure that none of Earth's germs were making him sick. It was all very reassuring for Sanji, despite the soldier looking people in the back of the room.

Once they were done with the questions, Vivi and Chopper were called out of the room by someone else. Before she left, Vivi raised her hand in the same way she had during their greeting and said another word he did not understand.

Shortly after, Sanji fell asleep, but he was convinced that they had induced this sleep chemically.

That next day Sanji woke up with a tablet, like the one Vivi had, sitting on the table next to him along with a plate of food. He really hoped that it was eatable, alien food was always a risk. Thankfully, it did not kill him, although it wasn't particularly pleasant, and after he finished Vivi came in with another woman, this one with straight, dark hair.

Vivi raised her hand and said that word again, "Hello, Sanji," then she pointed at her companion and said, "Robin."

Sanji did not know this, but Robin was a renown animal behavioralist sent to study him. She was quite looking forward to it too, it was the chance of a lifetime after all.

This was Vivi's first lesson, the first of very many. She would say a word, show him a picture, and then show the written word. He caught on very quickly, while Robin scribbled down notes and the army people talked to each other in the background. By the end of two weeks Sanji could catch on to some of the words spoken to him in conversation.

XxxX

Zoro arrived at the lab late on his fist day a week after the crash, somehow he had managed to get lost on the way while following a huge line of other people. He was just thrilled to be there, everyone on the outside wanted to know what was going on in this place. No information was being released at that time.

At the lab, Zoro studied data and samples that were intensely interesting, but he was disappointed that he did not get to see the actual alien. Disappointed, but not surprised. Very few people were allowed to see it and those who did were hounded for information back at the hotel when everyone stayed. Zoro avoided them, they weren't talking, so there was no point in asking.

XxxX

Sanji was bored. He did not like being shut up in a glorified display case. He didn't like it when he woke up and they had preformed tests on him. He didn't like that he had to deal with boring people. By the end of a month Sanji could hold out limited conversation and enjoyed typing random words into google images on the tablet.

As soon as he could, he was asked to describe how he ended up crashing on this planet and where he came from. He answered these questions to the best of his ability and was slightly embarrassed about the tale of how he got there. People seemed disappointed to find that he was only a chef who ended up there by accident.

When he wasn't learning with Vivi, he was constantly being observed by scientists like Robin. Doctors often came through when he was sleeping and when he was awake. Sometimes he thought they drugged his food because every time he woke up he got the feeling that things had been moved around. Chopper was the only doctor he liked and that was quite the accomplishment because he usually hated doctors.

With his ever increasing knowledge of the English language, he had to meet with 'important people'. They were boring, political, and he did not know who they were, but they all said pretty much the same thing. Always talking about what an honor it was to meet him, asking about where he was from, and casting him cautious glances.

By this time, he had started to enquire about the different accents the people around him had. Vivi explained that she was from Egypt, Chopper was from Canada, and Robin was from Russia, the country where he was staying. He liked learning about earth's geography, new places were always interesting. He wished he could see them for himself, but they insisted on keeping him locked up. He wasn't sick yet so what's the worst that could happen out there.

XxxX

Two months after the crash, Zoro was sitting outside on a bench, looking at some data when someone sat down next to him. He glanced up and was shocked to see one of the few people authorized to see the alien, Dr. Robin Nico.

"You are Zoro Roronoa, the kendo champion, yes?" she asked, her eyes freaked him out. Something about behaviorists freaked him out in general, but he was more surprised that this was how she had chosen to address him. He was a kendo champion, but here he was more well known for his scientific work.

"Yes," he said slowly, "And how would you know that?"

"I looked you up," Robin said pleasantly, "I have would like to discuss something with you, if you care to listen."

Oh what the hell, how bad could it be, "I'm listening," he sighed.

XxxX

Luffy was practically bouncing up and down as he made his way toward the now famous town. Luffy was the son a very rich individual and with his allowance he liked to do things like fund SETI, because aliens are awesome. The people from SETI had allowed him to come to this area on behalf of his contributions and after a bit of hounding. It had taken them long enough to give in and let him come. He was not allowed to go see the alien but he could go to the crash site.

Later that afternoon, he met up with one of the engineers for a little tour. The man he met was large, loud, and had electric blue hair. Luffy instantly liked the guy.

"Hey bro, ready to go? Luffy, right? I'm Franky, I'll be your super tour guide!" the man said enthusiastically, striking a ridiculous pose that had Luffy star struck.

"Yes, yes, yes!" Luffy chanted, rushing toward the armored truck that would take them to the site.

"Woah, hold on, bro. We have to suit up first. Wouldn't want to catch the space flue in there."

After they had their suits on, they climbed awkwardly into the truck and set off. When their destination came into view it was as a large creator in the center of a blown back circle of trees. The ship itself had been half imbedded in the ground, but it had been pulled out and was now supported on even ground, with people rushing in and out like little ants.

Franky and Luffy got out of the truck and walked down the dirt path to the center of the crater. Well, it was more that Franky had to keep a hold of Luffy to prevent him from charging down by himself, but you understand.

The inside of the ship was lit by bright studio lights, causing a lot of glare off the many monitors. Some of the consoles were busted, with people working on them.

There seemed to be far too many people inside, not to say that it was a small ship. There were just a lot of people. Luffy did not mind one bit, he oooh'd and aaah'd over all the strange devices and smooth surfaces. When they came to what appeared to the the bridge, Franky called out to one of the other engineers.

"Hey, Usopp! What's up, bro? Make any progress on that thing?" That thing he was refrying to was a replicator, it still worked just fine, but Usopp was trying to figure out just how it worked. It was his job to figure out how all these little contraptions worked, unlike Franky who worked on the engines.

"Yeah," Usopp grinned, "I've figured out were they get the matter from. There's a recycling system built in that takes any excess and repurposed it. Now I have to figure out how they transport it though this little tube thing," he put his finger on the replicator's tube.

They talked to Usopp a while longer. Luffy liked this guy too, he told awesome stories, like how when he was only seven years old aliens fell out of the sky and Usopp, being a kind soul, gladly tossed their ship back into space to get them back on track.

All in all, it was a pretty good day for the straw hat boy.

XxxX

Sanji was doing a handstand when Robin came in, she had a more secretive smile on her face than usual.

"Mister cook," she nodded, speaking softly into the microphone, "I would like you to meet someone. Zoro, won't you come in?"

This peaked the blond's interest. Robin did not often bring in anyone and if she did it was for an experiment, so this should be interesting. She motioned for someone to come closer and a man walked through the doorway. A man with green hair.

Zoro was extremely excited, this was basically his dream come true, but he tried not to get his hopes too far up because he was realistic like that. When he stepped through the door he saw through the window a blond man staring at him. He was shocked at first, he just looked so normal. Photos of Sanji had been released to the public, but somehow he was expecting something stranger than just one weird eyebrow. It was a very weird eyebrow though.

The green haired man was staring at him like all the scientists did. It made Sanji feel like a spectacle, and not in a good way, in more of a freak show sort of way.

"Hey, stop staring at me," Sanji said irritably, glaring at the man.

"Sorry, got lost in your eyebrow," the man responded absently.

Sanji was confused for a moment, certain that he had lost something in translation, "What?"

"Nothing."

Sanji narrowed his eyes, "You have a different accent, where are you from?"

"Originally from japan, but I live in the United States now."

Sanji made a mental note to look up 'Japan' sometime in the future, "So what do you do, moss-head?"

Zoro shook himself out of whatever trance he had been in, "I'm an astrobiologist. And who are you calling moss-head, curly-brow?" he shot back. As soon as the words left his mouth he regretted it. This was his first meeting with an alien and he was about to make a bad first impression.

Sanji gaped at him, "Curly-brow? What the fuck? I'll have you know that it's a genetic condition, moron."

Zoro was suprised that after spending so little time on earth how well he spoke. Although, he had a very strange accent.

"Oh, so not everyone of your race has weirdo-brows then? That's a relief."

The conversation spiraled downward from there. They hurled insults back and forth until Sanji was ready to break down the door to kick this guy's ass. He had long ago run out of English insults so he had switched to every other insult he knew in a dozen different languages. All the while, Robin happily took notes in the corner, carefully observing the interaction.

After Zoro had left, pushed out by Robin who had a meeting to get to, Sanji was on his tablet looking up japan. It seemed like a nice place, very pretty. He was looking through their national parks, Akan national park to be precise, when he came across an odd word; marimo. Rare algae, that grow into nice fluffy little balls. It was too fitting. Zoro would now forever be in Sanji's mind a marimo. He grinned.

XxxX

Luffy had left the crash site people to bother the people working with the alien. He wasn't allowed in the labs, but he hung out in the hotel and followed people around, trying to find someone to let him him.

One day, he was following around a doctor Nico when he was whacked over the head by a redhead.

"Ow.." Luffy moaned, cradling his poor head.

"That's what you get for being such a menace," the redhead said, brandishing her fist, "I've seen you chasing people around for the past few days and I know you aren't part of the staff, so who are you?" She said with an air of authority.

"I'm Luffy and I really want to see the alien," Luffy pouted.

The woman sighed, "Don't we all? Bothering people won't get you anywhere, I've tried everything," and she really had. Bribing, blackmailing, seducing...etc. no one was willing to share what was going on, "But that doesn't explain how you got in here."

"They let me in because I gave SETI a bunch of money."

"A bunch of money, eh?" This changed thing, "Alright then. I'm Nami, it's nice to meet you."

"What do you do?" hhe black haired boy asked.

"I'm on the team trying to calculate where this ship came from in the first place." She didn't really need to be there, but she the people in charge offered to pay for her to come and she wasn't about to turn down an offer like that.

"That's so cool!"

"You're damn right it's cool, it's amazing," Nami said confidently.

"So do you know Dr. Nico?"

"I've talked to her a few times, yeah, but there's no way she's just going to let you in if you talk to her." Nami liked Robin and she got the feeling that Robin liked her was well, they could be friends if Nami wasn't currently trying to manipulate her.

"But you could get her to talk with me?" Luffy began to get excited.

"I could, possibly, but don't expect much."

"Don't worry, if I get in you're coming in with me."

Nami tried not to roll her eyes, like anyone was going to let this guy in. "Sure, come on, she gets out in about ten minutes. We can wait for her by the elevators. By that time she can usually lose the crowd."

"Yosh! Let's go!"

When the two did meet Robin she was alone.

"Hey, Robin," Nami greeted, making it seem like she was waiting for an elevator as well.

"Hello, Nami," Robin nodded with a smile, "And who is your friend?"

"This is Luffy he-" she was cut off by an excited Luffy.

"I want to see the alien," he blurted out. Nami slapped her hand to her forehead, so much for being subtle.

"Many people do," Robin said with a secretive little smile.

"But I have to see him," Luffy insisted, "I want him to tell me about his adventures. What's he like?"

"He is quite polite, but he has a fast temper."

"Can I meet him, please?"

Robin looked at this boy very closely, analyzing him. She met people who bugged her about this everyday, but this guy seemed different. Why was he different? There was only one way to find out.

"Very well, tomorrow meet me here at seven. I'll take you to him."

Luffy cheered and Nami's jaw dropped, "W-what?" She sputtered incredulously.

"You can come as well, miss Nami."

"Thank you very much," Nami shook the doctor's hand with wide eyes.

"You are very welcome, I will see you tomorrow."

The next morning they met by the elevators as promised and made the trek to the lab. They had to go through extensive security in order to get through. Though it was a hassle, it was well worth it when they saw the figure in the little room.

He was sitting on a bed playing around on an iPad. Nami was shocked at how human he looked. Luffy ran right up to the glass, grinning like a lunatic. The blond alien looked surprised to have someone run up to the glass like that. He set down his iPad and turned his attention to his visitors.

Robin walked up to the microphone, "Hello, Sanji. I have some people who would like to meet you. This is Luffy and Nami."

Sanji smiled at them both, though more broadly at Nami. "Nice to meet you."

"What's it like where you're from? Are there lots of interesting people? Do you go on adventures? Do you eat meat?" Luffy blurted out.

Sanji hesitated, "I worked at a restaurant, so I met lots of people and served many different foods."

"You cook?!" Luffy's eyes gleamed at the prospect of space food.

"Of course I cook, I'm a chef."

"Will you make me meat?"

"If they let me out of here." He sounded bitter as he let out a sigh. "They don't let me cook anything, I don't have a kitchen in here."

"Do you miss home?" asked Nami.

Sanji immediately changed to a lighter tone, "Ah, not too badly, my darling, but I'd rather not be stuck in here."

"Do you have a dream?" Asked Luffy seriously.

"What?" asked Sanji, misunderstanding the question, "Of course, I dream."

"I mean, do you want something more than anything else in the universe?"

Sanji paused, "Well, it may sound like silly, but when I was small I used to hear stories about a place where all people of the universe came together. My dream is to build a restaurant there, on All Blue." His eyes had a far away look and he spoke very wistfully.

Luffy smiled, "When you get out I'll help you look for that place."

"What?" Sanji was taken aback.

"We can make a crew and search for that place. My dream is to captain a space ship, so I can help you out."

Sanji chuckled, "Sure, if I get out of here you can help me look for All Blue."

"When," Luffy corrected.

"Very well, captain," he joked.

"That's aye aye, captain to you."

Sanji raised an eyebrow, but lifted a hand in salute, "Aye aye, captain."

Luffy grinned. "Good, now I just have to find the rest of the crew. Nami can be our navigator-"

"You can't just say I'm coming without asking," Nami said but Luffy ignored her.

Luffy continued, "And Robin can be like our adviser for when we meet other aliens, like councilor Troi on Star Trek," Robin chuckled at that. "We'll be the best crew of space pirates ever!"

"Pirates?" Sanji asked.

"Pirates are people who sail ships on the oceans and plunder other people's goods. Except in this case, they would sail through space and not the ocean," Robin explained.

Sanji's eyes lit up, "Ah, yes. I grew up with these pirates."

"Really!?" Luffy shouted, completely starstruck, "You have to tell me everything!"

Sanji went on to talk about some of the things he had experienced while he was out and about. Sanji liked this kid and he liked his beautiful friend. He half hoped that if he did get out that he could become his captain.

Over the course of the next few weeks Sanji felt in a better mood, he had more visitors who he enjoyed. Nami and Luffy came some days and Zoro on others. Sanji wouldn't say that he liked when Zoro visited, but it was certainly interesting.

One day, outside Sanji's room the visitors were introduced to each other by Robin.

"Ah good, you are all here," Robin greeted them, "Nami and Luffy meet Zoro, Zoro meet Nami and Luffy."

"Wow, you have green hair, that's so cool!" shouted Luffy in shock.

"Uh, thanks?" Zoro looked confused.

"I believed mister cook is waiting," Robin said after a moment of pause.

Luffy was the first one inside, the others followed quickly behind them.

"Sanji!" he greeted happily.

Sanji's head snapped up as he saw his three visitors, plus Robin, come in. "Hello," he said.

"How are you?" Nami asked pleasantly.

"I'm wonderful, Miss Nami!" Sanji swooned.

Zoro snorted, "Are all aliens as useless and noodly as you?"

"You want to repeat that, marimo?" Sanji growled. He hadn't quite understood the insult but that only served to make him more insulted.

"Marimo?" Zoro blinked.

"Yeah, it's a thing that looks like you," Sanji said proudly.

"But how do you know what a marimo is?"

"Do you have mind powers?" Luffy asked eagerly.

"No, you idiot! I just used this," he held up the iPad.

"Oh," Luffy said in disappointment.

"Well, you're lucky that you're stuck in there, shit cook, or I would defiantly be beating your face in right now."

"No, I would be beating your face in!"

The idiot dance began. Back and forth with it's own sort of elegance. A flowing sort if stupidity that was somehow admirable.

After this day, the humans began hanging out together.

XxxX

Chopper bit his lip, it had been five months since the crash and Sanji really wanted out of his cage. So far they had worked out most of the pathogens were incomparable with human DNA, so they posed no real threat. Unfortunately, it would be impossible to cover every inch of Sanji and uncover every single germ he carried. Letting him out would be a risk on his life and on the lives of the people of earth, but the time was coming for it to happen.

His thoughts were interrupted by Brook, the Osteologist, cracking yet another skeleton joke. Chopper wished that the building were bigger. Not that he didn't like Brook, he could just be a little distracting sometimes and it's not good to be distracted when dealing with possible pandemics waiting to happen.

XxxX

Sanji was absolutely sick of his tiny cage and he was sick of not being able to kick Zoro in his stupid smug face. The marimo idiot was in the room at the moment, Robin had just stepped out to take care of something so it was the two of them and two bored looking soldiers.

"Oi, what are you doing?" Zoro asked, noticing that Sanji was just starting at the wall in his room.

"Trying to think my way out if here."

"I don't think that's going to work."

"Me either, but if I don't try I might go insane."

"Cabin fever?"

"What?"

"You're going crazy from being locked up."

"Yeah," Sanji trailed off, "You could let me out," he suggested.

"No, I could not and even if I could, I wouldn't."

"Aw, come on, you're smart, right Mister scientist man? I'm sure you could figure it out."

"Nope."

"What if I bribed you?"

"With what?" Zoro snorted.

Sanji gave him a coy smile, "Oh, I don't know, you're a biologist, right? So, if you let me out I might let you study my biology," his voice was laced with innuendo.

Zoro looked at him blankly for a moment before he burst out laughing, "Did you just try to sell yourself off as a bribe? You slut!"

"I don't know that word," Sanji sighed, although he expected it was something insulting because the word had come from Zoro's mouth.

"Whatever, I'm not int-" he was cut off when Chopper came into the room wearing full hazmat suit and followed by a large number of army personnel not in suits. "What's going on?"

"Sanji," the doctor said into the microphone, "we've decided it's time to let you out. You should know that it is a test and you may become sick from the incident."

"Let's do this!" Sanji said excitedly.

"Zoro, you should go. This could make you sick too," Chopper warned.

"Nah, it's fine, I'm not missing this," he assured.

Chopper looked like he wanted to protest, but he nodded and approached the console that would unlock Sanji's cell. A few touches if the buttons and the door slid open.

Sanji sucked in a breath and walked through the door. All eyes were on him as he made the steps. It was very odd. Being finally face to face the humans was also very strange. The first thing he did was walk up to Zoro.

"It is literally taking all of my self restraint not to kick you in your face right now, marimo," he grumbled.

"Being it on, blondie," Zoro challenged.

"I would, but I'm afraid that these nice gentlemen," he motioned to the soldiers, "might try and shoot me."

"That is possible," Zoro nodded, then he had a thought, "Can I be the first human to touch an alien with bare skin?"

"What? Don't touch me," Sanji scowled even as Zoro moved forward. He moved back, lifting his arm as Zoro's hand neared his face. Skin brushed skin and suddenly Zoro had his arm. He brushed his thumb lightly over the skin, it was rougher than he would have expected, very strange.

"You feel so weird," Zoro said as he ran his fingers up Sanji's arm.

Sanji grimaced, "Stop touching me, it's weird." He yanked away his arm.

They were being stared at but Zoro didn't care, he was the first man to touch an alien with bare skin.

XxxX

In the days following, Sanji was allowed outside for brief periods of time. None of the other people seemed to be getting sick, so his time was gradually increased.

He tried to get permission to fight with Zoro, but there weren't any rooms with enough space for them to go at it and they weren't willing to let Sanji outside yet.

After a month of being out of his cell the first case of illness sprang up. The case was in one of the soldier who had attended Sanji at one point or another. He had a high fever and his skin started to peal away after a few days. He died after a week. Sanji wasn't let out again after that.

As it would happen, this wasn't the only ominous thing happening at the time. The scientist were getting some very strange readings from all manner of devices. Most strange phenomenons happened around the ship, it was hypothesized that whatever was sealed away inside the ship was responsible. It wasn't just weird readings either, things would actually happen. Something would vanish into thin air, something other things would appear in their place. It was bizarre and unsettling.

In the following weeks the news only seemed to worsen, the bacteria, or virus, or whatever it was, had somehow spread to the general public. Probably through the soldiers contaminating other people or things they touched and sent through the mail. People weren't starting to get sick. The people didn't seem to be as enthusiastic about this whole thing as when they first started either.

There were some who wanted Sanji gone, many actually, for all sorts of reasons. Some thought he should be killed so he couldn't enslave them, some because he wasn't human. There was also a group of religious individuals who were upset because Sanji had not come from earth and was not human, so their was the sudden realization that their Gods hadn't made earth special. Some world leaders even wanted Sanji gone as the infection spread, killing more and more people.

Sanji just sat around in his little cell, wishing he could go home. Earlier he had been playing a game on his iPad but that had vanished, so he didn't have anything to do now. It was always weird when that happened, the air seemed to get heavier for a moment and then it was gone. It was happening more and more often to bigger and bigger objects. People even went missing from time to time.

Sanji sighed and stood up, walking toward the observation window. The first step he took felt like it was through water, slow and heavy. What was going on? He slowly fought his way toward the window and when he looked through it he saw Zoro standing there, staring at him. There Weren't even any guards in the room.

"What's going on?" Sanji asked.

Zoro shook his head, "I don't even know how I got here."

"You weren't here a second ago."

"I was back in my room, now I'm here."

There was a sudden shift and Sanji was standing in the room at Zoro's side. He tried to speak but the words refused to leave his mouth. Another shift brought them to a different room entirely. Luffy, Nami, Franky, Ussop, and Robin were all there.

"When did you guys get here?" Luffy asked, wide eyed.

"I don't know," Zoro said, "Do you guys know what the fuck is going on?" he asked the engineers, they did work closest with the ship.

Franky shook his head, "We aren't allowed near the ship any anymore, I don't know anymore than that." As he spoke one of he lights in the room disappeared and a large rock dropped to the floor near Usopp's feet.

"What the fuck is-" Zoro started but he was cut off by the strangest sensation. It was like reality was being twisted, like someone was taking the universe and wringing it out like a dishtowel. Everything seemed to come together far too closely and wrinkle together. It was impossible to know which was was up and which way was down or even if such concepts even existed in the first place.

After being twisted, things were stretched as far as they could go. Now, it was impossible to distinguish what anything had been in the first place, let alone what it was now. And without as much as a shout if alarm the universe folded in on itself and collapsed out if existence, leaving behind only incomprehensible nothingness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is like more of a unfleshed out plot line and it makes me sad. I should actually write it for real.
> 
> I wrote 10k words of this in like November 2014, it was going to be an actual story, and it got deleted and I died a little inside. So, I rewrote what I remembered. It's so disappointing, I liked the first one better... It was going to be a full on fic but now I'm too depressed to write it :( maybe someday.
> 
> Kuina in this case is Henrietta Swan Leavitt July 4, 1868–December 12, 1921.
> 
> Sigh... Zoro is living my dream. *sniff* I'll never be an astrobiologist *sobs*
> 
> We are ignoring gravity differences, atmospheric composition, and other issues. Also, I can neither confirm nor deny Kepler 22b being a water planet.
> 
> Sanji had the body temperature of a platypus.
> 
> You start to die of starvation if you go 40-60 days. If you are stuck on an island don't chop off your leg and eat it, it will not be worth it scientifically. You'll lose too much energy.
> 
> The idea of Zoro working his whole life for something that turns out to me Sanji is one that I find hilarious.
> 
> Osteology, the study of the skeleton, yohohoho! I thought it was funny *shruggs*
> 
> Thanks.


	6. Russian horror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Russian horror story.

XxxX

In was mid July in the tiny Siberian town, the temperature was up and the snow had for the most part disappeared. The town itself was very small by normal standards, but large enough that it had a series of shops where goods could be exchanged. Not many people passed through and not many people left. Every once in a while someone would venture out and get things from other towns, but the journey was rather long; a day's journey to the neighboring town by horse.

Sanji was up early, everyone here got up early, but Sanji got up especially early. He dressed quickly in his lighter summer clothes and began his morning routine of feeding animals and collecting eggs from the chickens. He had an old watch dog named Siniy and about fifteen chickens that he looked after. He had a goat, but she had died last month giving birth, poor thing. Once all that was done, he took the eggs to his little shop where he sold bread, meats, and other foods. Most people in town had their own source of food, but they would bring it in to Sanji if they needed anything special done.

The blond man was just glad to help the people out when he could. He kept a stock of extra food in the back for those who did not have success in the short growing period so that they would not grow hungry during the long winter, although Nami usually did a good job of making sure that didn't happen. She managed the town's extra food supplies, rationing it out in order to last for the winter.

Altogether, it wasn't a bad place to live. Sure, there were nicer, warmer places out there, but most of the people grew up in a place at least similar to this and those who didn't had few options left but to live out here.

Sanji had been living in this town for for six years. He had been born in a crime heavy district in Moscow, in 1894. His father was a soldier and his mother was a maid for some high class prick. Things were never easy for them, but they got along alright. Or they did until August 1899, when Sanji's father was killed over in China during the Boxer Rebellion. That next January there was a fire the apparent complex where Sanji and his mother lived.

It had been in the middle of the night and Sanji had fallen asleep in the main room, while his mother was back in the bedroom. The flames crept up from the floor below while they slept. By they time Sanji woke up he was choking on smoke. He struggled to sit up, falling onto the floor in the process. Flames licked over his clothes and caught on the fabric. The little blond boy screamed in pain as the fire burned its way up his pant legs.

Hearing the screams, one of the neighbors knocked in the door and grabbed Sanji on her way out, frantically extinguishing the flame. He escaped the incident with bad burns on his legs and back, which were still visible as an adult. His mother was not so lucky, she was still inside when the roof collapsed.

After that, Sanji spent a one year in a dirty orphanage before he was adopted by a middle class family who couldn't have kids of their own. Sanji hated both of them, they were of a higher status than Sanji's family had been, but still very low down in the grand scheme of things. He felt they mostly wanted him there to do the chores and they didn't pay him much attention, not like his mother did. He missed his mom and his dad. So he ran away after only nine months.

He then became a beznadzornie, one of the neglected children who lived in the streets. That was a rough life, sleeping in alleys, avoiding creeps, scavenging for food, he picked up a smoking habit, which wasn't nearly as bad as some of the things the other kids did, it was all just a terrible environment for a children.

The harsh winter after he had run away nearly froze him to death. Half starved and half frozen, he was unconscious in a dim and dirty alley when a man noticed him, a man with a fantastically large, blond mustache.

Sanji was hauled off to a cushy building, where he woke up thinking he would be molested by some sicko. That's the only reason someone would pick up a kid like him, as far as he could tell. He had heard stories of things like this happening. He steeled himself for a fight.

It was a fight that would not come, of course, Zeff was a good person at heart, even when it didn't seem like it and Sanji didn't want to admit it. Zeff was the reason he was alive and he was never quite sure what made the man pick him up. It wasn't like he hadn't seen someone like him before dying in the street. Sanji assumed he must have just looked really fucking pathetic.

After waking up, Zeff brought him physically back to life and taught him everything he knew; from cooking, to fighting, to dealing with criminals. Especially dealing with criminals. Zeff was what one might call a crime lord, a member, or the Russian mafia, so he had a good deal of experience with criminals. Sanji learned from the best. Zeff wasn't like the other crime lords, he had... standards, you could say. He was very sever, but he always knew what he was doing and managed to do the best he could during difficult circumstances.

Zeff was actually sort of a legend in the area, stories circulated about how he had lost his leg. He lost it in a bear fight, he was captured and tortured by removal of his leg, he cut his own leg off and ate it... And the rumors went on. Sanji suspected that it he had actually lost it in his military days and that was why he had left the army, due to frost bite like any other soldier, but that wasn't really as exciting a story.

Two years of Zeff's care later, in 1905, a revolution began. The people were angry with tsar Nicholas II for the outcome of the Russo-Japanese war that had ended in September, and for Bloody Sunday, when soldiers shot down peaceful demonstrators at the Winter Palace, outside St. Petersburg that December, and for the economic hardships they were experiencing.

Things settled back out for the most part in 1907. The tsar remained in power, but the Duma was established as a legislative body. But, from there things did not get better, everything was unsteady and they headed toward an unpleasant fate. Over the years, a healer by the name of Rasputin had been making visits to the royal Romanov family. The man was well known for his seedy behavior and only managed to add an aura of distaste to the already discredited tsar and his family. He also took it upon himself to get jobs for the people he liked, regardless of qualification, rotting the system from the inside out.

Sanji never got to see the full explosion that the disaster of a man had on his country, because in 1908 Zeff finally pissed off the wrong people. It seems that one day everything was good and suddenly they were running for their lives. They were forced to flee to Siberia, where no one could hopefully locate them.

They lived in the most populated city in Siberia for six years, until Zeff was discovered. He had been on his way to go feed the chickens when he was executed, shot in the back of the head at point blank range. When Sanji came home from fetching water and saw Zeff's lifeless body he fled. Zeff had always known his might happen and warned his quasi son as such. Sanji had been taught upon his meeting Zeff that if the older man died, then he should run without looking back. It was easier said than done, but Sanji did leave. That was how he ended up in the little town where he now lived.

Before he could open up shop that morning, Sanji had to go down to the lake and scoop himself up some water with a metal jug. He made the trek so often that he imagined he could walk it backwards with his eyes closed. As he made his way down the well worn way, his dim lantern swaying back and forth with every step, he got the feeling someone or something was watching him. He stopped for a moment and looked out into the darkness. He expected a bear or a wolf, but there was nothing. A panicky feeling crept it's wicked way up his back, but he took a deep breath and continued walking. He was probably just being paranoid, though years with Zeff had taught him that one could never be too careful.

As the lake came into view, it shimmered like thick ink and reflected only the stars, as it was a new moon. It was a rather large body of water, but not overly so, a stream not far from town fed into it. Sanji knelt at shoreline and scooped up the cold liquid, parts of the lake were still frozen so it was never warm. As he straightened his back to stand up, he felt something sharp poke his back. He waited only a quarter of a second before spinning quickly and knocking whoever or whatever it was off it's feet and poured the pitcher of water all over it. As it happened, it was a man who he knocked to the ground, a man with a sword.

"What kind of coward attacks someone with their back turned?" Sanji asked scathingly, as he lifted his lantern to get a better look.

"I didn't attack you," the man said, sitting up slightly, trying to clear the freezing water from his face, "If I had attacked you you would be dead. I was trying to intimidate you. I wasn't expecting you to fight back."

Sanji could hear he had a slight accent, probably from on of the eastern or southern countries, although his most interesting feature was his green hair.

"What do you want?" Sanji asked, half curious as to why the man hadn't tried to attack again.

"I just wanted to know if there was a town or something nearby," he shrugged.

Sanji gaped at him, "So, why the fuck did you try to intimidate me? What kind of antisocial asshole does that?"

The man narrowed his eyes in thought, "Well, whenever I go to towns, no one ever trusts me if I try to be friendly, so I thought maybe it would be different if I tried to be intimidating and turned out to be friendly."

Sanji shook his head. "You're a moron. Where are you from?" The guy may have been stupid but he didn't seem overly hostile toward his person.

"South," the stranger said vaguely.

Sanji pinched the bridge of his nose, "That's not very helpful, moss head. Where south?"

"Who are you calling moss head, freak brows? I'm from some shitty village in Mongolia, happy?" he huffed.

Sanji rolled his eyes, this guy was going to be a handful, he could already tell, "Why do you want to go to a town?"

"I need supplies and I haven't seen anybody in a while." It could be a little lonely wandering through the Siberian wilderness alone.

"Alright," Sanji said after a little consideration, the guy was suspicious, but he didn't seem the type to go around murdering people, so he could probably be trusted that far. "I'll take you into town, but not many people will be up yet, so don't go sneaking around. My name is Sanji, by the way."

The man nodded, "Zoro," he replied simply, as he let Sanji scoop up another pitcher of water and walk the path back toward the town. The two of them walked in silence, neither fully trusting the other.

Sanji opened the door to his little shop and let Zoro inside.

"Just stay here until people start to get up. Why the fuck were you slinking around at night anyway? It's way safer to travel when it's light out," Sanji said as he poured his water into a pot and started a fire to boil away the imperfections.

"I wasn't tired. What is this place?" Zoro was standing in the middle of the floor, looking around at all the packages of food Sanji had.

"It's a shop, moron."

"What do you sell, idiot?"

"Food."

"So, you're a cook."

"I'm not a cook, I'm a chef."

"I don't believe you," Zoro scoffed, "Chefs need actual training. What the fuck would a 'chef' be doing out in the middle of fucking nowhere?"

"Running a store, smartass."

"Fuck you."

"Just stand there and don't bother me, people should be getting up soon," Sanji said as if he were talking to a dog and started to set up the shop for the day. Meanwhile the wanderer stood awkwardly in the middle of the room watching him. This quickly began to irritate the blond.

"Stop staring at me, you weirdo," he finally said, "Ugh... Just- just do this." He pushed a butter churn toward him. It was better than awkwardly doing nothing.

The swordsman blinked at him, but did as he was instructed, making some silky smooth butter.

Eventually, the rest of the town started to wake up. Luffy was the first person to stop by that morning.

He shoved open the door shouting, "Sanji, I need- Woah, who is that?" He pointed his finger toward the stranger. It was so weird to see a new face around these parts that it wasn't really a strange reaction.

Sanji massaged his forehead, "Luffy this is Zoro, Zoro this is Luffy. Play nicely, please, I'm trying to do my job."

Luffy circled Zoro curiously, "Why are you here? No one ever comes here."

"I'm just passing through," Zoro said evenly, eyeing the strange boy.

"Where are you staying?"

"Nowhere, I don't think I'll be staying that long."

"Aw, why not?" Luffy pouted at the though of losing a new person so soon, "Where else do you have to be?"

"Nowhere, I just don't like staying in the same place for long." He had a strange look on his face. Staying around had never given him much luck in the past.

"No," Luffy whined, "You have to stay. I like you."

"Luffy," Sanji cut in, "You just met him. You don't know anything about him, he could be a mass murderer for all you know."

Luffy shook his head and gazed at Zoro. "You will stay here in town," he promised, "But for now you can stay with me."

"Like I said I don't think-"

Luffy had stopped listening, "Sanji! Feed me, I'm so hungry!" He laid over the front desk and whined pathetically.

Sanji huffed and brought out a package for him. The package contained a large portion of elk meat. Luffy came by every morning to get his packages, he had Sanji spice up all of his meals. Sanji knew he was spoiling him, but he couldn't just let the idiot starve.

Luffy gave a cheer and started to tear open the package, but Sanji smacked him in the head with a wooden spoon. "Don't eat it all at once, that's the last bit of elk I have left. I'll have to ask someone to go out later to get some."

"I could get one," Zoro spoke up.

Sanji raised an eyebrow, "You have a gun?" He asked, half expecting the man to say that he could take on down with his sword. If he could do it, Sanji might have been impressed.

Zoro unrolled his supplies and brought out a fairly nice rifle, "I'm a pretty good shot too."

Sanji looked skeptical, "If you do bring one back, what do you want for it?"

Zoro shrugged, "Food, I guess." It was as good a trade as any.

"Alright then, you can leave your stuff with Luffy and if you bring back an elk I'll pay you for it," Sanji said.

"Deal." And with that Luffy lead Zoro out of Sanji's shop and toward his little log home. Luffy had an extra bed where his brother used to stay, but Ace had left a long time ago and he wasn't coming back, so the space was open.

While Zoro left to start hunting, Luffy went to the fields where he was paid to tend to the crops. It was stupendously boring, but most people laughed at him when he asked for a job, so he was stuck. He was glad that this Zoro guy was in town, he seemed interesting and he defiantly had to stay.

XxxX

Zoro spent a few hours skulking through the wilderness in search of elk. First he saw a bear, then two bears, then a small pack of elk. He lined up the shot, aiming for the biggest of the lot. He maybe wanted to show off a little bit. What could he say, he wanted to shove that stupid blond's face in his skills.

Zoro did not especially like guns, they were a coward's weapon. He would never use a gun to settle a fight, but they were very good for hunting. Hunting with swords would be extremely difficult.

Bang! The elk scattered and the target fell. A nice clean kill. Zoro lifted the creature and began his journey back. For some reason, the trip back seemed about twice as long as it had when he had gone out. Weird, right?

It was mid afternoon when he got back, all of the towns people were up by then and he got plenty of strange looks from them. When he dragged the elk though the door, Sanji looked mildly surprised.

"Wow, didn't expect you to actually get one," the blond said, around a lit cigarette, "I though your plant hair might impair your skill somehow."

Zoro scoffed, "Well, you were wrong, curly brow, because I am amazing. So, here is your elk." He thrust it toward the store owner, who was now glaring at him.

"Whatever, just follow me." Sanji had a little butchers table set up for occasions like this. Once he had the elk on the table, he sent Zoro off and began to skin the animal, carefully preserving the fur. He would take it to Robin after it had dried, she made coats and wove blankets, in this climate one could never have enough fur. That was where Sanji spent the rest of his day, butchering the animal. It upset him to have to help customers whilst covered in elk blood, but it couldn't be helped.

Zoro spent the rest of the day being dragged around by Luffy, who decided Zoro needed to see every amazing thing he knew of, which included: a bear claw, a tree growing out of a big rock, and his friend Ussop's house. Ussop built lots of weird stuff, but his primary job was to build things people needed and when he wasn't doing that he was working in the fields.

When Zoro met Ussop, his first though was that the guy was a major weirdo. When they showed up, Luffy burst into the house without knocking, causing Ussop to jump like a scared cat. He appeared like he was going to yell at Luffy when his knees started shaking.

"W-who's that?" he stammered, staring wide eyed at Zoro.

"This is Zoro. You have to show him your stuff!" Luffy commanded with a grin.

After a moment of hesitation, Ussop brought out a large chest while nervously glancing at the green haired man. When the chest was opened they found it to be filled with lots of gadgets and toys. It was pretty amazing, he even had a set of intricately painted matryoshka dolls.

Upon seeing their amazed faces, Ussop grew bold, puffing out his chest and boasting, "Did I ever tell you the story of how I saved a group of children from a pack of wolves using a invention I made from sticks and mud?" He then launched in to a very tall tale of how he heroically saves all those poor children. Luffy took it in like a sponge but to Zoro the whole thing was defiantly bullshit. By the time they left, they stayed a good while, Zoro was positive that the guy was a compulsive lair.

At the end of the day, Luffy and Zoro stopped by Sanji's to pick up Luffy's dinner, with some extra for Zoro and went over to Luffy's place. It was nice to have a place to stay for the night other than up a tree or something. It was better than what he had to do in the winter time, which was to stay in a town while it was too cold to roam around. No one ever trusted him, so he was always sort of shunned. Once someone threatened to shoot him if he didn't leave, actually that happened a few times but only once did they actually shoot, grazing Zoro's left leg.

The next day was a Sunday, so everyone got up to go to the little church down the road. Bells rang out as the people made their way over to the building. Luffy was really the only one who did not attend, this was because he didn't like it in there, and people didn't like him there either; he was too disruptive. It helped that he was friends with the priest, Brook, so there wasn't any idea of animosity between the boy and the church.

Zoro was confused, when he heard the bells, but assumed they were for a church. He was glad Luffy wasn't going to the service as it gave him an excuse not to go too. People were crazy about churches out here and Zoro never wanted to go to them, which often made people angry. He was a pretty solid atheist, but he grew up under Buddhist principles. Russian orthodox churches just freaked him out, they were very... atmospheric with all their sights and sounds.

Meanwhile, inside the church, the town's people were sitting in organized pews, facing their tall priest who was directing them in song. They sang praise in low tones while the various candles around them flickered in the dim room. Various religious icons littered the walls, depicting various scenes: an angel, the Virgin Mary, the Christ child. This rich religious environment gave the congregation a hypnotic sense of togetherness.

The sermon lasted about an hour and a half. Most days people had their own little areas in their homes set up for prayer, but Sundays were special, obviously. People streamed leisurely from the building afterward. When Sanji arrived at his home Luffy was waiting for him along with Zoro, who really didn't look like he wanted to be there, but had three swords resting against his hip.

Sanji sighed upon seeing them. "What do you want?"

Luffy grinned at him. "Zoro is really good at fighting, so I told him he should fight with you."

"Why can't he just fight you?" Sanji didn't want to have to kick the poor bastard's ass again, he would feel bad, or so he told himself. Really he was just trying to come off a suave and smooth.

The dark haired boy shook his head. "You're better for this."

"No."

"Come on, you don't have anything important to do anyway! It won't take long," Luffy pleaded.

The blond took a second to glare at the green haired man before begrudgingly agreeing. Luffy let out a cheer, then announced he had to go see Nami about something and rushing.

Sanji stared after him in irritation, but soon returned his gaze to the swordsman. "Well, it seems I have been dumped with you so let's go." He led them to a small clearing near the lake's shore. They did not speak and the silence was very awkward. "This work for you?" he asked, not really caring.

"It's fine," Zoro replied, unsheathing one of his three swords.

"Why do you have three if you only use one at a time?" Sanji nodded at the weapons.

Zoro smirked, "I can use all three, but you aren't even worth two, I'll even use the blunt edge."

"Did you just insinuate that you are a better fighter than me? Who was it that got knocked on their ass yesterday?" Sanji shot back indignantly.

The Mongolian growled, "Alright, you caught me off guard once. It won't happen again, I promise you that."

They circled one another, before launching into action at nearly the same time. Swing, dodge, kick, miss. They flowed together in an odd and violent dance. It was soon apparent to Zoro that Sanji did in fact have considerable fighting skill. He backed them up toward his swords and grabbed another from it's sheath.

Sanji smirked, "Thought I wasn't worth two," he mocked.

"I seem to have underestimated you," Zoro said apologetically, credit where credit is due.

The attack this time was even more vigorous. They both managed to land a few heavy blows, but they refused to let the other get the upper hand. They continued like this, until Zoro let his swords drop as he tackled the blond. Close combat was not good for Sanji, he needed to create distance between them. They rolled around, struggling on the soft grass as Sanji scrambled to get some leverage. Zoro was half laying on him when he managed to get his leg awkwardly between them and kicked the green haired man into a tree with a dull thunk.

Breathing heavily, they tried to retain a measure of composure. Sanji sat up and tried to brush off this clothes the best he could. When he looked back up at Zoro their eyes met for a brief and uncomfortably intense moment. It was as if in that moment there was absolute silence, everything ceased making noises. They couldn't hear the water, the buzzing insects, the distant sounds of the town. And then, when the eye contact stopped everything resumed.

"You're not totally shit," Zoro confessed, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly.

"Neither are you," replied Sanji, still not looking at the swordsman.

"We should do this again," the swordsman recommended.

Sanji nodded, for some reason this felt like a bad idea, but he felt himself agreeing anyway.

As the week moved by swiftly. Zoro helped with farming and hunting. He knew he shouldn't be staying so long; he really didn't want to get too attached before he had to move on. He did get together with Sanji a few more times, the man could fight. It was so rare to find someone who could stand up to him without being crushed, but for some reason when they interacted something felt... off about it. There was just a little weirdness there. Sanji seemed to sense it too, which may would explain why he spent so much time avoiding the newcomer.

XxxX

It was after ten days that Zoro decided it was time to move on.

Luffy was very against this idea. The day Zoro was all set to leave, Luffy blocked his path. It was very early, still dark outside, Zoro had tried to get up and go before Luffy was awake but it seemed the black haired boy had a sixth sense when it came to the threat of not getting his way.

"You can't leave," the black haired boy blocked his path out of the small house.

"I have to go," Zoro stated, lifting his small amount of luggage as if it was a form of justification.

"Why?" Luffy complained.

Zoro sighed, "Because nothing good ever comes of me staying in place for very long."

"Come on, nothing bad has happened so far. What harm could it do?"

"I don't know, anything could happen!"

"Then stick around until it does, until then you can live here because we are awesome here. You have shelter and Sanji's amazing cooking, why would you want to go?"

Zoro groaned, "Why do you want me to stay?"

Luffy placed his hands on his hips, "Because I like you and now you have to stay."

Zoro glared at him for a long time trying to think up a good retort to such a silly argument, but what would be the harm in staying if no one seemed to hate him yet? Other than Sanji that is, and Zoro was perfectly fine with that. The two stared at each other for a long time, neither moving until Zoro finally decided 'fuck it' and caved in.

"Fine, you win but as soon as things go bad in out of here."

Luffy cheered and announced that he was going to throw a party for him.

XxxX

Luffy, true to his word, did throw a party for the swordsman and he invited all of his friends. Zoro had already met them all, or else he had seen them at some point.

There was Brook, the least obnoxious priest Zoro had ever had the pleasure of meeting. Robin, the fucking terrifying seamstress, who Zoro did not trust what so ever, there was just something shifty about her. Chopper, the young doctor who had graduated top of his class at the university of Moscow only to be placed in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Franky, the man who could probably chop all the wood the town needed for the winter singlehandedly. Nami, the stingy food counter slash secret town leader, or so Zoro suspected. And then there were Usopp and Sanji.

They all drank vodka well into the night. Zoro had an astoundingly high tolerance for the stuff, so he out drank everyone. Not that Sanji didn't try to keep up, with disastrous results. The blond ended up laying on his back on the cold ground staring drunkenly up at the stars after everyone had left, as Zoro poked him in the stomach with the toe of his shoe.

"What do you want me to do with this?" Zoro asked Luffy, who was sleepily rubbing his eyes.

"Ahh," Luffy yawned, "He can sleep here I guess."

Zoro looked back at the small house, there wouldn't realistically be any room for Sanji in there. Zoro sighed in resignation, it wouldn't be that far to Sanji's house. "I'm taking him home," Zoro told his host, kneeling down to get Sanji's attention.

The blond blearily stumbled to his feet, leaning heavily on Zoro for support. The Mongolian man began the trip, half dragging Sanji toward his home. With Zoro's ability to drag a body, it really didn't take too long. The door was actually locked, which Zoro found shocking. There didn't appear to be much to hide from in this tiny town.

Belatedly realizing Zoro's dilemma, Sanji retrieve the key but dropped it in an effort to unlock the door. Zoro glared at him as he giggled at his own fault and grabbed the key from the floor, swiftly unlocking the door and shoving it open.

The inside of Sanji's house was more empty than Luffy's, Luffy kept his house filled with lots of toys thanks to Usopp. Sanji's was empty, like he was afraid to acquire keepsakes.

Zoro dumped him onto his bed with no regard to his comfort. He was turning back toward the door when Sanji grabbed his sleeve and tugged for his attention. Zoro lifted an eyebrow and turned to see what the drunken idiot could possibly want.

Sanji struggled into a sitting position and was leaning toward Zoro rather precariously.

"What?" Zoro asked.

"Come 'ere," Sanji slurred, clumsily waving him over.

Zoro sighed and took a step closer. Sanji pulled him forward by the shoulder like he was going to whisper something, but at the last second he turned his head and tried to kiss the swordsman. Zoro ducked out of the way, obviously shocked.

"What are you doing?" he asked. Oddly enough, he didn't feel angry, just a little detached from the situation. He was supposed to feel outraged, homosexuality was a sin after all, but he really didn't.

Sanji made a whining sound as he reached out for Zoro again, "No, I wanted to do that, like, forevers."

"Well, you're going to have to wait some more forevers, because you're off your face drunk right now. Try kissing me again when you're sober, then we'll talk," he snorted. If Sanji actually tried to kiss him sober Zoro would kiss him right back out of respect for the balls it would take in this little religious, everyone knows everything, town.

"Fuck that," Sanji scoffed, "They'll stone me to death or some shit."

"Probably," Zoro agreed, "I'm going now."

"But-"

"Yeah, I'm getting out of here before any other weird things happen." He back away, toward the door.

"Zoro!" Sanji complained loudly.

"Sweet dreams, cook," Zoro laughed as he exited. Maybe he was more drunk than he had originally imagined because he was still feeling more light hearted and giddy than disgusted. It was probably best to keep that to himself.

XxxX

Sanji awoke the next morning with a throbbing head and fuzzy memory. Shit, he shouldn't have drunk so much. He ran a hand over his tired face, even drunk he'd not slept very well. He thought back on the night before, trying to make sure he hadn't done anything absolutely stupid. He paused on the memory of Zoro lugging him home, there was something weird about it. He tried to remember and jolted when the memory came rushing back. Shit. He'd tried to kiss him. What the fuck had he been thinking? Fuck, his life was over. He was going to have to move towns before winter to make a new start, but he didn't want to leave; he actually had friends here.

He would play it by ear, he decided, if Zoro told anybody about it, he would deny it ever happened. Who were they going to believe, the man who they'd know for six years or an outsider? If things got out of hand he would pack up and get out. But for now, he had to get up and work his daily chores.

When Sanji went outside, his mood only worsened when he saw that the dog had managed to get off his leash and got into some of the food. He had grabbed a bag of cream Sanji was going to churn and dragged it all over the yard. By the time he grabbed Siniy and fixed his leash up, he was behind his daily schedule, so he skipped getting the water in favor of opening shop.

Then, the first customer of the day happened to be the last person Sanji wanted to see so early in the morning. When the door opened, Zoro walked in Sanji and knew whatever he wanted was going to be a pain in the ass, but he had to stay cool. Pretend nothing happened.

"What do you want?" Sanji asked as soon as the idiot was inside.

Zoro scowled at him, "I have an elk. I'll give you a load of fire wood to prepare it."

"Why would I want your shitty chopped wood?" Sanji asked with narrowed eyes.

Zoro rolled his eyes, "So your little girl arms don't have to do any work."

"What was that, moss head?"

"You heard me, curly brow, just get it done, okay?" Zoro said, crossing his arms.

Sanji sighed, it wasn't really worth the effort so early in the morning and his head was badly pounding, "I'll get you when it's ready, bring it around back." He then realized that he didn't have the water to wash off his hands. "Oi, can you go get me some water?" He hated to ask, but it would be convenient.

"No," Zoro said in his best no nonsense voice.

"Oh, come on! I'm doing this for you, can't you just work with me on this?" Sanji whined.

"Nah," Zoro smirked, just to be annoying.

Sanji gave an irritated huff and grabbed his water bucket. "Fine, I'll go get it."

He stomped out the door toward the lake and was slightly surprised when he heard Zoro following him. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm going too."

"If you're going, then just get the water for me."

"No."

"God- fuck, whatever, I don't care," Sanji stomped off as Zoro continued to trail him.

Sanji turned to confront him by the water's edge, well out of sight and hearing distance of the town. "What's you-"

"You tried to kiss me," Zoro said simply.

One simple sentence was enough to drain Sanji's face of blood quicker than a vampire. "N-"

"Shut up, don't deny it. It defiantly happened. I'm not going to tell anyone."

"Well, what more is there to say?" Sanji muttered, "I was very drunk after all, you can't possibly have taken it seriously."

Zoro's eyes narrowed, "You still want to do it," he said after a moment of examining Sanji's lying face.

"I do not," Sanji denied as Zoro took a step closer, but he didn't step back. Would there really be any harm in one kiss if no one ever knew? Zoro didn't seem too bothered by it after all and wasn't like it really meant anything. They were both men, nothing would come of it, Sanji was just a little curious was all.

Zoro leaned in and Sanji didn't move, not about to be tricked into reciprocating the action. Zoro was staring down into Sanji's soul, the gaze was so intense that Sanji had to look away, his eyes zooming over the darkened lake instead. He felt a stab of shock as a saw something strange in the water and turned his head toward it, breaking the intensity.

"Wh-" Zoro tried to ask, but Sanji shushed him, placing a hand on his shoulder and turning him toward the lake. Sanji knelt down with his lantern for a closer look.

There was a body in the water. She didn't seem to be wearing much in the way of clothes for this weather, but she was covered well enough. She didn't look to have been in there terribly long, her lips were blue and her face was white, she was a few feet under the water, her head resting on the shallow bottom. No one had disturbed the water yet, so she was clearly visible. What was worse, Sanji knew who she was. Keimi lay motionless on the bottom of the lake as if stopped by time. Her short green hair was floating like a halo around her head.

Zoro walked a little closer to the lake and his foot struck something as he did so. A burnt out lantern skittered into the water after its immobile owner. A soft billow of mud floated up from the place it landed.

"Is she-?" Zoro started.

"Dead?" Sanji finished, "It looks like it," he said rather numbly. He hadn't been overwhelmingly close to the girl, but they had been friends. She was nice enough and she had seemed happy. Sanji didn't understand why something like this should happen to her.

"What should we do?" Zoro asked, Sanji knew more about this place than he did.

"I'll go get Brook," Sanji decided. He was a bit reluctant after having nearly just committed a serious sin, but this was much bigger than that. "You go get Chopper."

While Sanji rushed to wake the priest, Zoro retrieved the doctor. A few minutes later the four of them stood by the water's edge as the rest of the town slept.

"Someone will have to go get her," Chopper said in a tremulous voice. They had blankets and such ready for the task and a stretcher to bring the body back into the doctor's examination room.

"I'll do it," Zoro volunteered, already removing his clothes. Sanji watched rather too intently as the swordsman undressed and had to look away.

Zoro dove down into the frigid water. It took a moment for him to orient himself, but he soon enough grabbed the body by the waist and pulled her up to the surface. He dragged himself from the water and set the girl on the stretcher, shaking violently. Brook and Chopper carried off the body as Sanji handed Zoro a blanket and lead him off, back to the shop.

Sanji added some logs to the fire already burning in the hearth and pulled a stool up next to it for Zoro. They were both very quiet. Sanji sat on the floor next to Zoro's stool, still feeling cold so close to the fire. He realized that he'd forgotten to get his water after all, he'd actually left his pitcher by the lakeside. It hadn't seemed so important anymore.

Zoro was still shaking as he watched the flames of the fire flicker up and down, dancing their way through the wood that kept them alive.

Sanji moved closer to Zoro, walking on his knees. The swordsman didn't look at him, so he gently moved his face with the soft touch of his hand. It was so warm against Zoro's frozen epidermis. With the other hand, Sanji took the other side of his face and pulled it forward. It was a very tentative kiss, both were hyper aware of the wrongness of the action but not doing anything to cease the contact. Sanji was warm and Zoro was very, very cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually a scary (I guess more creepy) story, or it will be, but this is mostly the set up. Really, it's a very brief summary of what would be the first few chapters :/ I've been really wanting to work on this, I should probably get on that. 
> 
> Fuck, I wanted to avoid WWI because it's such a cluster fuck but a miscalculation in my math and I ended up having Sanji born in 1894, instead of 1884. Oops. Oh well. 
> 
> I'm not sure beznadzornie is properly congregated, I don't speak russian. 
> 
> Dammit, I can't call Zoro a marimo because no one is from japan. 
> 
> I don't know if people used to boil water to get rid of impurities, or if they just built up a tolerance to them. 
> 
> We are not going to talk about how Ussop under up here because I have no clue. Also let's just forget about racism please because fuck that. 
> 
> Blah, I have to make everyone hyper religious because it's Russia (second Rome and all that stuff) and it's the olden times. I don't like it. 
> 
> Thanks.


	7. Expiration Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When things are bad and you only make them worse.

Two feet standing on a principle  
Two hands longing for each others warmth  
Cold smoke seeping out of colder throats  
Darkness falling, leaves nowhere to go

It's spiraling down  
Biting words like a wolf howling  
Hate is spitting out each others mouths  
But we're still sleeping like we're lovers

-"Still" Daughter

XxxX

Sanji stared at the woman kneeling before him. She was on one knee, holding out a wedding ring. His heart gave a nearly audible thump. He knew what he should do, how he should feel about this. He should say yes, absolutely and sweep her into his arms and they could be happy together. He had known that she wanted to get married and apparently she was done waiting for him to propose the old fashion way and went to do it herself. Good for her, social standards be damned.

His mind was racing so quickly that he felt dizzy, luckily his body seemed more adapt to deal with the situation than his mind, it was already in motion, doing something appropriate. He wished that he could put his heart into it, he really did. Why couldn't it just be that easy? No matter what he tried we just couldn't put any passion into his actions, they were all empty and hollow.

They had been sitting on a pier, the wind was blowing a soft, warm breeze and the few people walking about, milled along with their own business. That is until Keimi had proposed to him, that grabbed their interest. With their eyes on him he knew what he had to do. He had decided to play this game and that was what he would do. It wasn't like he could back out now, well he could but that would be dangerous and emotionally painful for one of them.

"Yes," he forced out breathlessly to answer her unspoken question. Relief flashed over her pretty face and she nearly tackled him over in happiness.

A cheer had arisen from the crowd of onlookers as they embraced. Sanji felt off balance and he was afraid that if they didn't stop he might collapse. Eventually, the seemingly endless stream of congratulations and well wishes ended, leaving the coupled to walk in peace. They spent the rest of their evening laughing and dreaming of wedding plans, they agreed that they couldn't wait to tell everyone. By the end Sanji's face hurt and his mouth tasted bitter with lies.

When they reluctantly parted ways Sanji's smile dropped and he carried himself listlessly home, to bed where he flopped down into his face. Was he doing the right thing? No, defiantly not but what else could he do? Hate himself. That seemed like the best option to him.

Despite his need for sleep, Sanji brought out his phone. He needed to tell someone and he had to do it as swiftly and as painlessly as possible.

Sanji 11:43 PM

it happened.

Zoro 11:43 PM

What happened?

Sanji 11:44 PM

I'm engaged, it's official.

There was no response to that, Sanji was not surprised. A few minutes later his front door swung open and Zoro marched in with an angry expression on his face. He must have used they hidden key because Sanji would have sworn that he had locked that door, or maybe he hadn't, he couldn't remember and what did it even matter? Sanji didn't move, he just continued to lay there, waiting for the coming storm.

"So, this is it," Zoro stated as the stomped into the room.

"This is it," Sanji confirmed. This was the day they had dreaded for so long. He should have waited longer, there was still time to spare. He should have picked someone else. He shouldn't be thinking any of these things at all.

Zoro groaned, "I hate you so much. Why can't you just-?" He let out an exacerbated sound.

"Because this forces change, otherwise nothing will happen," he said quietly, and it was true what he said. Change was needed and they weren't going to do it on their own.

"Things don't need to change," Zoro insisted. He had always been more comfortable in his actions and morals than Sanji was. The blond tended to be too in his own head. Zoro made decisions and stuck to them he did not deliberate in the same way Sanji did.

"Yes, they do, you're a police officer. You know what will happen!" Sanji shouted. Of all the professions the idiots could have gone into, it had to be the police, didn't it? Well, he could have joined the military, that would probably be worse. But in his current job he had to sometimes deal with... cases that hit a little too close to home.

Being a homosexual was not illegal per se, it was just very heavily frowned upon. Very heavily. Because the police couldn't outfight arrest them, so often times vigilantes would take action. Their victims wouldn't always end up dead but sometimes they did and whatever did happen was recorded and posted to the internet to destroy the life of the person on tape. One of their favorite ways to humiliate a person was to urinate on them, they would also beat the ever loving hell out of them doing all other means of terror. And as a member of the police force in a bigger city, Zoro was encouraged to look the other way.

"Only if they find out!" Zoro insisted.

"They'll find out!" They always did somehow.

"You don't know that!"

"Yes, I do, and when they find out we're both done for. I don't want that to happen."

Zoro grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him up to face height. "Making both of us miserable isn't going to help our quality of life."

"But at least we won't be dead," Sanji spat.

"We wouldn't die," the idiot snarled.

"Maybe not but it would still suck." He let out a pathetic sound. "Why is life so unfair?"

"Fuck if I know," Zoro huffed as he let go of Sanji's shirt.

Life had been very cruel to both Sanji and Zoro, who had together found out that they were... different in high school. There were many moral standards against that sort of thing. They knew that all too well but it couldn't be helped.

They had been together since they were eighteen, which was subsequently the same age at which Zoro had been disowned because of Sanji. It wasn't really Sanji's fault, it was bound to happen anyway. Sanji just happened to get caught up in it.

His parents had come home and seen them together, they hadn't even been doing anything really bad. They had been playing video games in Zoro's living room when Sanji had stood up to go find crackers and delicious squirt cheese. When he had returned, cheese and crackers in hand, Zoro had stood up and kissed him in his excitement over the fact that they had squirt cheese. They had lingered for only a moment, an innocent enough kiss but Zoro's parents had taken this moment to return from wherever they had been and when they saw their son kissing the boy he was always hanging out with they freaked out a little bit.

There was a lot of yelling and horrible name calling, mostly directed toward Sanji. The blond was eventually shoved out the door while Zoro's parents resumed screaming at him. Sanji remembered his panic as he was leaving, fleeing the house. They probably wouldn't tell on Zoro, he was still their son after all, but nothing was stopping them from ruining his life. He had never been so frightened.

He hadn't heard anything from Zoro for the rest of the weekend then he had showed up at the Baratie with a suitcase full of clothes saying that he had been disowned. Sanji convinced Zeff to let Zoro stay for the remainder of the summer, then he would be off to the police academy anyway. Zeff didn't care about the thing that they had between them, or he wouldn't if he had known about it. Honestly, Sanji didn't think that Zeff would give a fuck if he was sexually attracted to dolphins or something, just so long as he got his work done and didn't say anything stupid but he wasn't going to risk it.

No one knew other than them, they had been very carful after that. If anyone did know them never said anything about it anyhow. There had been periods where they had tried to stay apart but they just ended up right back in the same place. Oh, cruel fate.

The both of them were thirty when Sanji had decided that he had to play The Game and by the game he meant the 'happy, straight boyfriend game'. This decision had been reached when someone they knew made a comment on how oddly close their relationship was with an strange expression on his face. It had not been the first time someone had made a comment like that. So, Sanji got a girlfriend.

Keimi was a high school biology teacher and swim coach in the area. She met Sanji while eating at the Baratie. They made friends quickly and Sanji soon discovered that she had a very good quality for being his cover girlfriend; her family was devoutly religious. The fact that her parents kept such a close eye on any physical contact they along with her natural quality of being not very inclined to things of the sexual nature was a very, very good thing.

The whole situation made Zoro extremely irritated, and why shouldn't he be irritated? Sanji was technically cheating on him, although he wasn't getting any pleasure out of it. But they still had their thing going strong the whole time. Zoro wished that he could hate her, it would make him feel better but she was too nice for that. Damn her and her pleasant personally.

They had been dating for two and a half years when Keimi proposed. That seemed like simultaneously forever and not long at all. Zoro had told him to break up with her many many times so that it wouldn't get so serious and every time Sanji tried he just didn't have the heart. She was in love with him, a fact that he felt like a gaping wound in his chest. He could never forgive himself for what he had done but what's done was done and now the least he could do was make Keimi happy.

The room was quiet as Zoro flopped onto the bed beside him. "Just break it off." Zoro mumbled, knowing full well that it was useless.

"I can't do that now, it would break her heart."

"Yeah well you're breaking my heart."

"You're heart knows what's coming and it knows that strategically this is the right thing to do," Sanji scolded.

"Oh, the love master Sanji is talking about love strategically. When did you become so cynical?" he scoffed.

"When I figured out I was doomed to a life of lies," he droned. "Thanks for that by the way."

Zoro huffed, ignoring that last remark, "We should run away together," he suggested.

"We can't leave everyone else behind," Sanji said.

"We should commit a double suicide," he didn't miss a beat.

"Not happening."

"Fine, have it your way, homicide-suicide it is."

Sanji rolled over and placed his had over Zoro's mouth. "Shut up, in trying to be miserable here."

Zoro grabbed him by the hips and hauled him closer, "Am I distracting you from your spiraling depression?"

"Yeah, if you could stop that would be great. I'm trying to resign myself to a life of discontent and you aren't helping," he said indignantly.

Zoro kissed him shortly on the mouth. "You could always come to the dark side and ditch your responsibilities." A sinfully tempting request.

"I'm already doing that. I'm cheating on my fiancée and we've only been engaged for a few hours," Sanji pointed out.

"You've been cheating on her the whole time you've been together with someone you've been with since you were in high school. Besides, I love you more than she does anyway," Zoro said in irritation.

Sanji rolled his eyes. "And I love you but we both know that this thing is approaching it's expiration date, it's almost time to terminate. To be fair we are probably running on borrowed time as it is."

Zoro knew he was right but that didn't make him feel any better. Instead of saying anything else that would lead to him wanting to punch Sanji more than he already did, he held the chef close for a long while, and they both gradually fell asleep although it did not come easy now that they both knew that these moments would be limited.

XxxX

It turns out that time moves quickly when you're planning a wedding. The ceremony would be taking place on December tenth, a winter wedding. There was so much to do and everything was overwhelming. There were a few occasions where Sanji had nearly lost it and curled up into a ball, never to uncurl again, or moments where he felt like if he held his breath long enough he would stop existing and none of this would have to happen. He'd never felt more like jumping in front of a bus.

As the date approached it seemed to feel more and more real, it was an oppressive weight dangling over his head and he was just waiting for it to fall. Zoro wasn't much help, all he did was kiss him when he got the chance and say that he could skip town whenever he wanted. They could run off into the sunset together. And all Sanji did was kiss back and shake his head.

XxxX

Four days before the wedding was the bachelor party, which was apparently a necessity. Sanji wasn't looking forward to it, he wasn't in the mood for celebration. It was him, Usopp, Luffy, Chopper, Franky, and Zoro. It was a night of both excitement and terror but was to mostly boiled down to was: getting very drunk, getting kicked out of the bar, going over to Sanji's and trying to bake a cake, failing horrendously, and passing out on the furniture. It was fun and it got Sanji's mind off the wedding for a short time.

Even Zoro was off his ass dunk that night, a very rare occurrence. Sanji suspected that it had something to do with the upcoming wedding. After everyone had either passed out or left the room Sanji was standing in the kitchen, drunkenly trying to clean up his counter and making it even worse. He had managed to scoop up some of the flour into his shirt, something that would horrify him were he sober, when Zoro had practically run into him on his way to the living room. He let go of the front of his shirt and flower went all over the floor.

Sanji let out some kind of horrified noise while Zoro just stared at him, a disconnected look in his eyes. He didn't seem to have registered what just happened.

Sanji put has hands on his hips and glared. "What are you looking at?" he growled.

"Nothin'" Zoro said, turning his face away.

"Right, then just move along," he tried to shoo him away but he only walked closer. "What are you doing?" the flour covered man demanded.

"Nothing, geez." He just kept walking forward. Sanji didn't stop him but he was very wary of whatever it was he thought he was doing. Zoro brought them together so that they were nearly chest to chest. Sanji was looking at him crossly but his eyes lacked fire. Zoro brought their faces together very slowly. In the back of his mind he knew that he should really be careful, one of the others could appear at any moment but his alcohol hazed brain was more focused on Sanji than any potential dangers. Sanji mind was similarly compromised. It was fuzzy and sloppy but they clung it every moment in escalating vigor.

When Sanji woke up the next morning he was thankfully clothed but with a horrendous headache. He was propped up against his cabinets in the corner of the kitchen. Zoro was lying on his stomach at Sanji's side, he had has arms wrapped around the blond's torso and his face against his stomach. It was horribly uncomfortable but he didn't want to get up, he was afraid he might puke if he moved. So, he just sat there, running his hands through Zoro's grassy hair until he heard the others start to move around. He then detached himself, with a good deal of effort, from the marimo's hold and started to make pancakes. The kitchen was a horror show but that could wait until after breakfast.

By the time he was done Zoro looked like he had been snowed on from drifting flour, and Luffy and Usopp were waiting eagerly for food.

Zoro was nudged awake by Sanji's foot soon after and he groggily ate his share of pancakes, his face blank and his eyes boring into Sanji's back as he cleaned up.

It was too late now and that was that.

XxxX

Two nights before the wedding was what Sanji was calling his final goodbye party. Zoro came over for what would be the last time if all went as planned. They were very quiet and the atmosphere was depressing upon his arrival at five pm.

They went ice skating on the pond in Sanji's backyard. It was now cold enough that it was solid enough to hold them. Sanji was very good at iceskating and he liked to show off his skill whenever he could. He like to skate backward and talk while he skated with other people because it made him feel cool. He only sometimes fell but when he did it was hilarious.

On this day his skates hit a divot when we was close of the shore line and he went soaring into a bush. Zoro laughed at that so had he though he might die. It had broken the tension for a time.

The chef made a return from the bush bruised in body and pride but not mortally injured, suggesting that they go inside because he didn't feel like skating anymore.

When they went in Sanji served onigiri and they ate quietly. After that Zoro flopped down onto the couch and turned on the tv. Nothing good was on. Sanji climbed on with him, pressing his face against Zoro's shoulder. He didn't say anything at first, just let Zoro wrap his arms around him and soaked up the warmth.

"It's the end on an era," Sanji finally said, his voice muffled.

"That remains to be seen," Zoro grumbled back, he had no intention if letting Sanji to. It went against his fiercely loyal nature.

"We can't do this while I'm married," Sanji said flatly, "Then I would be physically cheating on both of you and I don't think I can do that."

"But I'll know that you don't mean it," Zoro tried to rationalize.

"You can't really know that for sure," Sanji pointed out, "Despite whatever my intentions or feeling may be that is still wrong. All of this is wrong."

"The situation is wrong. This," he brushed a hand through Sanji's hair, "is not."

"Yeah, well what do you know?" Sanji's eyes were stormy and downcast.

"I know that you shouldn't be so hard on yourself, they've got you right where they want you." A dangerous place to be.

"I can't help it," Sanji sighed, it was hard going along with something that was so socially unacceptable. Not that he had much of a choice.

"There's always ditching any commitments," Zoro suggested.

Sanji's eyebrows furrowed. "Will you stop telling me to run away with you? You know that I'm not going to do it so just stop." Every time he was tempted but he couldn't do it, he knew he shouldn't.

"I can't help it," Zoro repeated back to him, "Every time I ask a tiny part of me raises hope. I'm only out for your best, I don't want you to force yourself to have sex with someone."

Sanji grimaced, "It's going to be humiliating," he moaned. He was not looking forward to the honeymoon and dealing with that. It was be horribly embarrassing when he couldn't... preform, as it were. Not something he was looking forward to.

Zoro smirked."Yeah... It's just comforting for me to know that she'll never have the same power over you as I will."

"Shut up, I'd rather you not feed off of my misery," Sanji growled, suppressing the urge to bite down on Zoro's shoulder like a zombie.

"You can only hope that she's not interested in sex."

Sanji scoffed, "That would be great, I know that she can't have kids and her family made her pretty upright, so I guess it's possible." The poor, kind girl had developed Endometriosis in her late twenties, a disorder in which tissues that normally grow in the uterus grow outside of the uterus, leading to chronic pain and infertility. She dealt with it in her own way, as strong as she could be with her uterus trying to murder her but she would never have kids.

They were quite for another long while.

"I don't want to be your best man," Zoro admitted after a time. He had wanted to say it ever since he was awarded the role.

"I don't want you to be my best man either." It hurt too much. "I wish I was marrying you," he said quietly.

"So do I, then we could live happily ever after," Zoro chucked.

"No more sneaking around, and we could have a family," he said wistfully.

"I've always wanted a little girl."

"I could teach her to cook and kick ass, and you could teach her how to hack down her enemies. We would have the most kickass little girl ever," Sanji laughed. It hurt him that it could never happen.

"She would be the greatest," Zoro agreed. "I would teach her to be even better than me."

"The world's greatest swordswoman," Sanji smiled, if only it could happen.

"I want to ditch the whole thing," Zoro whispered.

"You can't, that would look bad."

"Why couldn't you just pick Luffy as the best man?"

"Because that would be weird, they would wonder why I didn't pick you. We spend the most time together."

The green haired man huffed. "This is bullshit."

"I know but it's too late to turn back now." He pulled his head up to look Zoro in the eyes. He looked very tired, he hadn't been sleeping well.

"I feel a deep emotional attachment for you." Zoro said softly as his eyes rolled slowly other Sanji's pale face.

"Ditto, you fucking robot." He brought their faces together and they made out on the couch for a while until they decided to go to bed.

XxxX

The day before the wedding was the wedding rehearsal, all the important people needed to go including Zoro, who obviously was Sanji's best man. Maybe it seemed cruel to make Zoro the best man but it would be weird not to so the swordsman would just have to suck it up.

It was two hours before he had to go and Zoro was determined to miss the whole event. He didn't want to go so some dumb reversal, it was bad enough that he had to go to the actual wedding. Instead of attempting to get ready he was working out with great intensity, trying to make himself forget about the whole thing. It was then that, almost by the power of sorcery, Sanji arrived and seems to sense his ill intentions. The chef stormed through his house and stood in the doorway leading to his work out room, hands on his hips.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked, although he defiantly already knew.

"I think the real question is: what the fuck do you think you're doing?" Zoro shot back, he found his question much more important and relevant.

Sanji scowled and ignored the inquiry. "You have to start getting ready."

"Why? So I can go to your stupid, meaningless wedding rehearsal, I'd rather not," he spat.

"You have to go," Sanji told him, his expression was hard and determined.

"Well, I'm not so you can just deal with that," Zoro said, shaking a heavy dumbbell at him menacingly.

Sanji glowered at him. "If you don't go take a shower and get ready right now then I'll make you." He promised.

Zoro turned his head away and continued to left weights. He heard Sanji's frustrated huff and dodged out of the way as a kick was aimed at the center of his back. He dropped the weight and held up a wooden practice sword against him. They fought for a good fifteen minutes, both extremely frustrated and angry.

When Zoro managed to knock Sanji onto his ass the blond lunged for his legs, dragging him down as well. He started to drag Zoro toward the bathroom.

"You will get ready," he promised. He ran in to the bathroom and flipped on the shower. Zoro tried to escaped out if the room but Sanji managed to tackle him in time and began dragging him by the leg toward the shower.

"Come on," he huffed, "it's not that hard." He was pulling with all of his strength but Zoro, who had monstrous upper arm strength, had attached himself to the door frame.

"No!" There was no way he was going and that was final.

They continued to struggle until Sanji finally had them at least inside the bathroom. He had never worked so hard in his entire life.

"In!" Sanji pointed to the shower.

"Never!" Zoro tried to dart past him but Sanji pushed him back into the running water, clothes and all. As soon as Zoro had seen what was inevitably coming he grabbed Sanji by the front of his shirt and they both fell though the torrent of water. Zoro's back his the wall painfully but Sanji caught himself before he could fall on his face. Unfortunately, he was very quickly soaked through under the shower head.

Zoro smiled up at him innocently as Sanji seethed. He took a long breath, not moving as his clothes grew dark and heavy with water.

"Alright," he said slowly, "If you want to act like a child, I'll treat you like a child." He pulled Zoro into a standing position, grabbed the shampoo and squirted way too much onto his hands. Zoro tried to escape but Sanji plastered himself against the swordsman. The blond's hands were rough and relentless, forcing the lingering sweat out of his hair. It was a very painful and soapy experience. It was also ridiculous because Sanji was in a soaked and sudsy suit. At least Zoro wasn't wearing a shirt, he only looked half crazy.

As Zoro childishly squirmed Sanji took a bar of soap and a wash cloth and began scrubbing his skin raw.

"Ah, you're the worst!" Zoro shouted as he tried to knock the soap out of Sanji's hands. "I'll do it myself!" He grabbed the soap and began to wash himself like a proper adult. Although at the same time he changed the dial to pour cold water on them in a very childish way.

Sanji let out a screech and they fought over the temperature until Sanji was shaking like a small dog and Zoro took pity on him. Then he actually stated to wash himself out of guilt.

Sanji glared at him while he did so. "You ruined my suit," he pouted.

"Yeah, well you look stupid anyway. Plus, you obliterated the top layer of my skin. Do you know that that feels like? It feels like his." He grabbed Sanji's arm and twisted the exposed skin giving his a painful Indian burn even with the water killing his traction.

Sanji cried out and kicked him in the shin with a soggy socked foot. "This is not the path to getting on my good side, asshole."

"What do I care if I'm on your good side, you'll be off with your wife. You won't have time for sexy showers with me anymore." He paused in washing himself to put his hands on Sanji's narrow waist.

"We aren't very good at sexy showers anyway," Sanji glared down at his soaked clothes.

"I know how to make it better." His hands twitched up to unbutton Sanji's button up. He started awkwardly in the center of his stomach and got up three buttons before Sanji grabbed his arms.

"I'm not going to do this right before my wedding rehearsal," Sanji said, although he sounded like he was telling that to himself rather than to Zoro.

Zoro huffed and flipped up Sanji's soaked black tie so that it hit him directly in the face with a solid smack. Sanji gave him an unimpressed look as the fabric slid from his face. Then his expression changed to one of disbelief. "What the fuck am I even doing here? How did it come to this." He put a hand to his head and sagged like his energy had been sapped.

Zoro placed his hands solidly on either of Sanji's shoulders. "I don't know," he said trailing his hands up either side of the blond's neck and up into his hair. He quickly swept his hands upward giving Sanji an awesome mohawk. Irritated, Sanji jostled his hair out of the ridiculous style and gave Zoro a pathetic look.

His hair was messy, dark with water and falling in his face but not in the usual perfect style; both of his eyes were visible as he glared, leaving those elegant fucking eyebrows for all the world to see, the glare wasn't menacing, it was sad and slightly pathetic but that may just have been the soaked though clothes throwing off the image. He was perfect, perfect and sad. Zoro's mood then turned more serious, he leaned in close and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. Before Sanji could protest he was all wrapped up in Zoro's big manly arms.

Normally, Sanji would have made some noise of horror and battled his way free but now he leaned his head on Zoro's bare shoulder, ignoring the water running over his face, he half hoped that it would drown him and he wouldn't have to deal with any of this.

"Run away with me," Zoro suggested for what was probably the millionth time since they had known each other. There were places were they could be safe, they could be happy, but their home was here and their family was here, family meaning friends.

"If only, if only," Sanji mumbled against his warm wet skin, "But we have a wedding rehearsal to get to." He turned off the water from behind Zoro and slid the shower door open to retrieve towels.

They stood in their dripping clothes, wrapped in towels. Zoro was giving him a sappy look so the placed a towl over his head and rubbed the water out of his hair to avoid his gaze.

Zoro was then shoved out of the warm room to get clothes. Sanji was over enough that he had one extra suit that Zoro found at the bottom of his closet, still very delicately folded, much to Sanji's delight.

Sanji used a blowdryer to fix his fair and, bam, they were ready for action.

They drove separately but arrived at the same time. Sanji didn't want to chance Zoro ditching the thing.

Everyone was there doing all the wedding roles. There was a priest guy there directing them. The wedding was taking place in a beautiful church according to his future in-laws wishes. Sanji didn't really care where it happened, the result would be the same. He felt oddly numb as they went through the process. It was starting to register that this was actually fucking happening. He felt sick as he looked at Keimi, who was grinning wildly at him.

He got through it all the same, determined not to look at Zoro the entire time and he didn't. If he had then he wasn't sure what would have happened.

XxxX

Then the dreaded day had arrived. The actual ceremony was at three pm and making everything run smoothly was impossibly hard, Sanji was at work from the moment he got up. It didn't help that he felt like he was going to be sick all day. What the hell was he doing? He didn't even know anymore.

He didn't see Zoro until about an hour before he was due to go get hitched. It was almost physically painful to meet his eye but he forced himself to appear normal in front of anyone watching, he was supposed to be excited; excited, nervous, and full of love. All he could feel was anxiety and pain.

Just before he was supposed to go out and get married, he and Zoro were in a room by themselves, not saying anything. Sanji was sitting down because if he stood up he was sure he would fall to pieces or his legs would give out underneath him. Five minutes to go. Zoro moved to stand in front of him, his expression blank as a slate. He took Sanji's face in his hands, leaned down and kissed his forehead. "I love you so, so, so much," he mumbled against Sanji's smooth skin.

"I love you too." For a moment Sanji was afraid that one if them would start crying, he could feel his eyes prickling but he refused to do something like that. Sanji wrapped his arms around Zoro's chest and resting their heads together, holding on like his life depended on it.

"Run away with me," Zoro told him one last time and the offer was more tempting than ever, his mouth opened then closed again and in the end he said nothing. He couldn't, he just... it wasn't possible.

They remained that way until someone knocked on the door saying that it was time to go. They both knew the door was locked so they shared one last soul crushing and painfully sad kiss before they walked out that door, dropping their entwined hands as they left.

They walked slowly to the cathedral, entering in the side with priest to stand at the alter. Groom and best man. Two very happy young men. Model citizens.

The groomsmen and bridesmaids made their way down into place followed by the ring barer and flower girl. Then the bride arrived all in her beautiful white dress and veil. She looked gorgeous with her mermaid style dress elegantly shaped to her figure, lead by her father who was also beaming, happy for his daughter.

With every step they took Sanji thought of a way out.

He could catch his sleeve on fire. He could burn down the building. He could commit seppuku. Aliens could blast a hole in the roof. Everyone could drop dead. He could make himself pass out. He could run and jump into Zoro's arms and they could run out. He could be teleported to another dimension. Someone could be shot. He could start crying and run away like a coward. He could make himself throw up all over. He could out himself in front of everyone. He could just die right there.

The possibilities were endless but he found himself frozen in place, a plastic smile stuck on his face. Then she was there with him, a kind and excited smile on her face that broke Sanji's heart. He was a monster. He deserved whatever hell was waiting for him and more.

The event proceeded painfully slowly, Sanji could swear that time nearly moved backward for a moment, until the vows were so lovingly exchanged.

The priest man did ask if there were any objections to their union and for half a second Sanji's heart stopped as he willed someone to please say yes. For the love of all things good and wonderful, someone say yes. But no objection came. He knew that Zoro had wanted to say: "Objection!" pointing his finger to the priest, "that man is a homosexual!" But there was nothing.

Then those words came spilling from his throat, he wished he could stop them.

"I, Sanji Black, take you, Keimi, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part."

"I, Keimi Waters, take you, Sanji, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part."

"I pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride." And he did, fate was sealed and he felt cold inside. They were swept out of the cathedral and into a limo to take them to the after party.

There were congratulations and pieces of cake being shoved into faces. All perfectly orchestrated.

When it came time for the best man speech Sanji half expected Zoro to be gone by then but he had stayed. As the time came Zoro rose to is sure his awaited speech:

"Okay, some some of you may know me, maybe you don't. If you don't know me personally, then I'm usually the pain in the ass Sanji's always complaining about." He paused for laughter to subside. "So Sanji and I have known each other since junior year of high school and we immediately hated each other. Our fist conversation ended with us punching one of our friends in the face because he got between our fighting." He grinned at the memory. "That said it might seem weird that I'm here as the best man and I can tell you I'm just as confused as you. But we always seem to be there for each other when it matters so I guess that counts for something." There was another pause and he looked like he wanted to say something unscripted but resisted. "Anyway, what I really wanted to say was that despite being the single most frustration person in the world, that blond terror is my best friend and anyone who has the honor of marrying him should count themselves lucky because he will stick by you no matter what, regardless or whether you want him there or not. Keimi, if this is really what you want then have a happy life together." He finished sweetly and sat back in his seat as glasses were raised in cheers.

Sanji's eyes burned and his throat felt like it was going to close up on him. He hoped that it would to save him from all of this. Zoro giving his blessing of their wedding made him want to cry like a child but there were people watching so he kept that painful smile on his face all the while. If things weren't going to get better might as well make them worse. So, he sat there an endured all of this like the happy groom he was supposed to be. He hoped that on the way outside he would be hit by a car and he hoped that the death would be swift. It was probably more than he deserved.

If only he were born a different person in a different life, then maybe things could be different. Hopefully they would be less shitty but with his luck probably not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I wrote this just so I could get that shower scene onto paper... Into print. Whatever. I'm sad now. Thought about making it a big thing but I was like "nope I have other bigger things to write". Seriously, fuck inspiration. I don't even like one shots.
> 
> Do I think that Sanji could ever do this? Not really... Well, maybe but he would hate himself forever afterward. Whatever, I don't care.
> 
> Why do I like to write depressing stores so much? This one also makes me angry. Just, why?
> 
> Had to make up a last name for Keimi. Waters is better than Fuckface, right? Because that was the place holder XD I'm so sorry Endometriosis sounds awful but I couldn't allow there to be kids.
> 
> The setting? It's not a real place but it has its base in a... Certain place... It's semi inspired by a horrifying documentary I saw... That place that I'm thinking of should take a long hard look at some stuff going on. *uncomfortably clears throat*
> 
> Thanks.


	8. Really strange restaurant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Really strange restaurant.

Zoro was driving out on the open road in a mindless state. The unending street ahead of him was passing in a blur of reflective lines and cracked asphalt. He was out of focus, in a half dream state. It was so dark out; one AM, or maybe later, he couldn't bring his eyes to leave the hypnotic blur of the passing scenery. He was alone on a country backroad, driving along through a vast field of crops and grass, as if there was nothing else in the world. The landscape was all the same, a blurred image all around him, it-

His thoughts were cut to an abrupt end as his chip went into effect. Everyone had a chip, they were implanted into the brain as soon as a baby was delivered. They were designed to keep the masses happy, or so they were told, the masses. These chips randomly interrupted the thoughts of an individual, making it very difficult sometimes to carry out a train of thought. Thinking was not necessary. 

Some people were given special permission to have the intervals lengthened for skillet labor jobs, some even had them removed. The lower tier of citizens was forced to suffer through the full bast of the short intervals. Zoro could almost feel it in his head as it went off, sending jolts into his brain. He had frequent headaches. He couldn't even understand why- 

Zoro was on his way forward, proceeding toward his destination. Where he was going, he had no idea. He was given his instructions and then he left. They weren't exactly instructions, but he always got sensations directing his actions and they had yet to steer him wrong. Then again, when hag they ever steered him right? He didn't take much and he all but dropped everything to go. Just keep going, just keep moving, that's all he had to do. That's all he ever did. If he stopped he would be overwhelmed by the weight of everything. 

It's not like he had much at home anyway-

His head echoed a dull throbbing of pain, a residual effect of the jolts. Whether physical or psychosomatic he had no idea. His head hurt on most days, but it seemed duller outside the city. There were not as many sounds out here and the air was not so heavy or thick. He'd never been outside the city before, it was not normally permitted although no one had stopped him as he left. Everyone seemed to caught up in their own heads to notice. Maybe they had headaches too. It was not uncommon to see some warn down individual wandering the street, clutching their head. They never lasted long once-

Wherever he was going, it was it was far away. He had been on the road for nearly six hours now, stopping only once to pee in the middle of an empty field. So many fields. It seem that that's was all it was past the circle of industrial buildings surrounding the city, spewing their ash into the sky. It came down heavily, like snow, blanketing the ground in massive heaps that cleaners no longer bothered to clean up. The piles were so high now, far above the top of Zoro's car. It was like driving through a tunnel with no roof- 

The stars above twinkles brightly against the blackness of space. So vast was the sky but so full of stars. In the city it was impossible to see the stars. Zoro almost wanted to get out of his car and lay back in a field to watch the stars fade in and out of existence. He wanted to have an eternal light show. But he had to keep moving forward, toward his unknown destination-

His eyes were dropping slightly, he was so tired. That was odd, he usually functioned well on no sleep at all. Being awake was better than facing dreams. Zoro's dreams were dark, empty, and full of dread. He usually only slept three hours a night. He hadn't slept at all the day before his departure. Now he was so sleepy, his eyes could hardly stay open. The monotonous stretch of road only aided in lulling him to sleep. There was no time for that he had to keep-

He had left the crowded, diseased city behind. His small apartment, with its many tenants and strange sounds. Too many people, they were all sick. Breathing stale, corrupt air through broken lungs to propel their wilted bodies. What was the point of it all? Why bother to go on when the sky was gray and the rain burned like acid on the skin. Was there any point at all to keep going, or was it better to just-

There was a light on he horizon, dim but it stood out like a beacon through the darkness. From this distance Zoro couldn't see what it was. He fixed his eyes on it as it drew nearer and nearer. 

There had been people in the road past the factories. Some of them walked on foot but most were laying on the ground. It was difficult to judge their physical state when they were all covered in dirt and ash. Zoro had driven right past them, not paying them any mind and leaving it to them to get out of the way. He hadn't hit any, or at least he didn't think he did; it was all a little blurry-

The light was shining out from what appeared to be a restaurant, it's red fluorescents were bright against the dark sky. The red fluorescent lighting Zoro found a strange choice in design, it was not odd on its own, but when he was close enough he could read the words 'All Blue' written in red. Very odd. The place looked nice enough, it appeared to be a vintage diner of some era between the 60s and 80s. What year was it now? Zoro didn't keep track anymore. Years didn't matter when every day was exactly the same as the last. Come to think of it, he couldn't even remember how old he was. He didn't look that old, in his twenties maybe early thirties at most. It wasn't really a big deal but suddenly noticing it shocked him. When was the last time he'd thought about how old he was? Forever, it seemed like but sometimes time was-

This was a strange place for a diner to be sure, it was literally the only thing for miles. There was no way whoever owner it would get many customers. 

Interest peaked and sleep looming, Zoro decided to make a stop at the diner if only for a little while. He made the turn into the mostly empty parking lot. Everything felt still as he stopped the car and just sat there for a moment. He didn't know what he was doing; he hadn't for a very long time. There was no reason to dwell on it even if-

Zoro exited the car and made his way toward the building. He didn't bother to lock the vehicle, there was no point. If the car was gone when he returned, it was gone, he would move on. 

The air felt dry and clean, but the smell of death was heavy in the air, a familiar smell mixed with a strange openness of the uncovered crops surrounding the place. The temperature itself was just on the border of warm and cold. It felt like summer and night, although Zoro didn't know what month it was. The city was always too hot, even in then winter if felt suffocating. It was a bubble of heat even surrounded by a frozen landscape beyond-

Shoving open the diner doors, Zoro was met by the blinding light of the interior. He blinked, thrown off by having been in the dark for so long. The place had the typical vintage look; chrome stools, checkerboard floor. There was some unknown tune playing softly in the background. Those bright lights made the place shine, all except one in that back that flickered on and off. 

The place was nearly empty. He could see the few other patrons sitting at tables far apart and facing away from each other. There were only two of them and one of them got up as Zoro entered, walking slowly out the door back into the night. 

Her face was empty, despite her wide smile. She moved like one soon to be doomed. Sucked down into the slow spiral that was death. So many met that particular fate; too many. She was a corpse on her feet. 

Zoro had seen many dead bodies in his life. As far back as he could remember they had always been there in the background; a looming presence. In the city, it was sometimes hard to say if a person was dead or alive. There were so many who lay listlessly in the streets that sometimes the street cleaners carried the living away. Those picked up didn't protest, their liveliness had gone from them, almost to the level of this woman's as she passed Zoro by. Hopefully she would find a convent place to die, Zoro hated it when they were difficult in their-

Zoro moved toward the counter, the woman gone from his mind. There was only one man behind the cash register, he wasn't looking at Zoro, he was staring out through a dark window toward the sky and tapping a pen against the counter with a deeply worried expression on his face. 

Zoro stood in front of him for a moment, waiting to be noticed but was not. Looking around, Zoro spotted a bell to his left. He tapped the bell lightly and watched as the man behind the counter jolted to attention. Said man turned his head toward Zoro tilting it slightly in question. There was something off about him; his smile was too genuine. It was disconcerting. He was tall and slim, pale skinned with pale hair, his visible eyebrow curled in, his eyes too bright and smile too true. Zoro's immediate reaction was alarm. 

"Can I help you?" the strange man asked. 

"I would like to see a menu," Zoro said, suddenly unsure of why he had come in at all. He wasn't much a fan of food, it all tasted like sand or sludge in his mouth; a mix of unpleasant texture and taste. The city only provided the same variety of food every day, no variation. Meals were necessary to keep moving, not meant for pleasure. Pleasure led to the endless and unfulfilling search of happiness. Happiness was a foreign idea, not one- 

The man grinned and pushed himself back from the counter, coming around to lead Zoro to a booth on the opposite side of the diner from the only other customer, whose face Zoro could still not see. 

When he took his seat he was not handed a menu, the man just started at him with the same genuine smile. 

"Are you-" Zoro tried to enquire about any menu he could look at, but was immediately interrupted. 

"Your meal with be with you momentarily," the blond said, turning on his heals, back behind the counter and through a door where it was assumed there was a kitchen. 

Zoro leaned back, not knowing what he was getting himself into. Maybe he should just leave now, before the blond came back, but what was the harm in staying? He didn't know where he was going anyway and if he didn't know where he was going how could he be late? So, he stayed, listening to the light music behind him and looking out at the spray of stars through the window. 

As he sat, the other customer stood up and walked toward the exit, he made no move to pay. He stood and walked out, casting only a sparing glance at Zoro, his face with the same empty smile as the woman's had been. 

They were empty shells, that was all. And when they met their end, it didn't matter that they had been people once. That force had gone leaving nothing more than dead weight and that Zoro could handle. It wasn't complicated, he didn't have to think. That's why he had the chip, so he couldn't think. Thinking was dangerous. Thinking led to-

The man was gone and Zoro was alone in the diner, the employee man was in the back with the food, but Zoro felt very isolated. He had never felt this sort of emptiness about him. He never felt alone in the city, there were far too many people for that sort of thing. Zoro let his mind fall into blankness as he waited if he tried not to think about anything the jolts didn't feel quite so painful, he expected it.

He felt like he sat in that booth for an eternity before the blond appeared again. 

"Your food," the man said, making Zoro jump slightly, much to his embarrassment. 

A plate of food was set down in front of him. He didn't recognize its contents, it defiantly wasn't something that was provided by the city's services. It was some sort of patty on a bun with an assortment of sliced foods stacked inside. On the side there were sort of beige-ish yellow sticks. Zoro poked at the food, noticing how the blond man did not leave. 

"You don't belong here," the blond said, his crooked smile still resting easily in place. 

Zoro looked up in surprise, "What do you mean? I'm just passing through, I don't belong anywhere. What specifically makes me not belong here?"

"You still have fire in you," said the server, making a vague gesture with his hands, "Stop messing with your food and just eat it."

"What do you mean?" Zoro ignored his command to eat the strange food. 

"Only people with nothing left make it through here, they are terrible all company. I never get living people in here," the man sighed, "Now, eat your food."

"You must not get much business then," Zoro said, raising one of the sticks to his mouth and taking a bite. It was soft inside and salty outside. He blinked at the oddly pleasant taste. 

The blond sighed again, "No one much comes through here, no one ever has anything interesting to say, and no one ever gives me that reaction," he grinned, poking at Zoro's pleasantly shocked face. 

"What is this?" Zoro asked, holding up a stick.

"It's a French fry, and that's a hamburger. Well, it's it would be a hamburger, but I don't have any ham. I thought you'd appreciate more this anyway, it's a vegeburger. Not that I suppose you would know the difference, the cities never give you such foods," the blond gave a look of disgust, "You've probably never had a good meal in your life, that's very sad."

"I've never had anything like this," he took a bite of the burger and was delighted at the wonderful taste. It was fresh with a warm taste, unlike anything he'd ever experienced with the city meals that were more rations than anything. The rations were cold and hard, smelling of dust and dehydrated fruit. They were meant to sustain. This new thing on Zoro's plate was something wonderful, it sent a little spark of happiness flutter over Zoro's mind. If only they ate like this back in the city, then maybe things wouldn't be so-

The blond frowned at his customer's sudden shift in emotion, knowing that his chip must have gone off, throwing his train of thought off its tracks.

"Well, dear customer, you seem to be the only one here so what are you doing here?" The strange man sat down across from Zoro. 

"I'm going somewhere," Zoro said, hurriedly eating his food. 

There was a looming roar off somewhere in the distance. Air moving too fast, rumbling and growing louder. 

"Where?" the employee asked, undeterred by the rising sound. The windows rattled and the sound seemed to reverberate through Zoro's chest. It was an airplane, they flew high above the city sometimes, carrying a low whooshing sound, but this one was very low and very loud. 

Seconds later the sound passed and Zoro spoke as if nothing had happened, "I don't know where."

"How can you not know?"

"I just suddenly knew I had to go, so I left," the green haired man shrugged. 

"You just left?"

"Yes."

"Won't people miss you?"

"I have no one."

"No family or friends?" he leaned forward over the table. 

"No."

He sat back again, "What's your name? I'm Sanji."

"Zoro."

Sanji hummed, "What's the city really like, Zoro? I only ever get vague emotions as description from lost souls. They don't have a very good outlook, nothing good to say."

"It's crowded and dark and it smells like death and sulfur," Zoro said half apologetically, sorry he couldn't offer a better picture. 

"That sounds terrible," Sanji said, unimpressed, "Why do you live there if it's so bad?"

"I've always lived there. Why is your restaurant themed in red when it's called All Blue?" Zoro pointed out, curious as to the thinking behind the design. 

"Because no one notices, you're the first to point it out," Sanji grinned. 

Zoro lifted an eyebrow, "That's a strange thing not to notice."

"We live in strange times," Sanji's grin spread wider. 

Zoro nodded his agreement. 

"What do you do in the city?" asked the strange man. 

Zoro was a street cleaner, or rather he had been. He didn't know what he was now, he had left that all behind him. Picking up the bodies hadn't been so bad, he was very strong. The bodies weren't heaving in a physical sense, but Zoro's coworkers all agreed that they were heavy. It was more a psychological phenomenon than anything. Zoro never felt that weight, he-

"How did you start this place?" Zoro asked. 

Sanji frowned when Zoro did not answer his question. "You know, I hate those stupid chips, they make it hard to carry out a conversation."

"Don't you have one too?" Everyone was meant to have a chip, or at least most. 

"No."

"How?"

"I never had one put in, or else I had it taken out. I was young either way, how should I know?" He moved his shoulders in disinterest, "I can't imagine living with it. It would be like a constant case of hiccups in your brain."

"I've never known any different," Zoro said, his voice with a touch of bitterness. 

"You must not have a very complex job then," Sanji miser. 

"It's not complex, I just clean the streets."

The smell was the bad part. All those bodies piled up on the truck. They smelled of death and defeat. That was what happened when you gave up. They were piled up and driven off to some unknown place. It wasn't part of Zoro's job to know where they went. He assumed that it was to the factories, but it wasn't his place to assume. It wasn't his place to think- 

"What was your childhood like?" Sanji asked as Zoro's brain had another skip. 

"No more or less traumatic than anyone else's."

Darting through back alleys and dodging officials until he was caught and put into a factory where he worked himself sick. He had been put to the streets while he was ill. Coughing up a slick red liquid and laying feverish among the dead. It hurt so much. He had been so cold, so-

Zoro's face had pinched in pain then went blank again, so Sanji picked up, "Well, I grew up here. This used to be the Baratie and it was run by my father before me. It's hard work to keep this place going, but I do what I can," he gleamed with pride. 

In the distance there was the sound of something heavy and large dropping from a great height, then an explosion. The ground shook with the force of the vibrations and the lights flickered on an off. 

Sanji didn't seem particularly bothered, so Zoro assumed that this must not be an unusual thing. Sometimes bombs dropped in the city, collapsing buildings and crushing many people. They aimed mostly for sick areas, sectioned off by the officials. The more casualties the better. So many-

"Why don't you stay here the night, you're hardly in a state to go," Sanji said as Zoro finished his meal. 

Zoro hesitated for only a second, "Alright." There wasn't any reason for him to go, he had nothing waiting for him that he knew of. 

"If you could help me clean up they would be nice as well." Clean up could be difficult on a one man team. 

Zoro nodded. They made their way around the restaurant, cleaning up it's hardly dirty insides. Sanji didn't get many customers so his biggest threat was usually dust, not grime. 

With that done, Sanji motioned toward Zoro, "Now, come with me," he led them outside. The smell of death was back in the air, hitting them in a was as they left the building. Sanji grabbed a flashlight and headed around to the back of the restaurant. There was a field of crops stretching across the expanse behind a large garden, Zoro didn't know what kind of plants they were. He was a city boy, the most he knew of plants was of the lichen that sometimes grew over walls and that wasn't much to go on. "We have to go stir the compost." Sanji explained, leading them toward a large basin punctured with many small holes. He flipped up a little hatch and pulled through it left overs from the restaurant, dumping them into the basin.Turned up the basin onto its side by a metal arm that lifted it a good foot or two off the ground. He spun the basin once or twice before he moved back and around to another small building to the side, Zoro following his every step. 

It was a small barn, only the size of a small room. Inside the two patrons from the restaurant were waiting. Although both man and woman were awake, there was a sort of fuzzy dullness about them that made Zoro think that Sanji may have put a mild sedative in their food. Zoro himself wasn't feeling any affects of what might be a depressant, a fact for which he couldn't bring himself to care either way. If Sanji had wanted to sedate him it would have been done and Zoro would have been none the wiser, but he hadn't so there was no need to worry. 

Sanji handed Zoro a shovel, "I expect you know what to do," he lifted his fine curved eyebrow. 

Zoro knew, he took the shovel from the blond. He had done this many times after a drop off of bodies after a long day of work. They had to check that all the bodies were empty before shipping them all, the best thing to do was break the neck. It often took more than one hit, but Zoro was pretty good so sometimes he managed in one.

Together, Sanji and Zoro laid the slumped individuals down onto the ground. They made no move to resist, there were very cooperative and polite; two qualities much appreciated in these trying times. 

Zoro took a step bringing down the shovel hard as he hit the woman directly between the vertebrae, severing the connection and killing her, lucky her. Sanji too brought a shovel down on the man in the back of the neck but the kill was not instant, it took three hard swings. 

Sanji panted slightly as he lay the shovels aside and looked to Zoro who was staring at the immobile bodies, thinking of the city. 

"It's better than what those stupid factories do," Sanji shrugged, as if Zoro was upset with the fate of these people when he was not. Sanji continued, "It's so wasteful to burn the body like that. Reuse is to be preferred."

Zoro nodded in agreement. He had never consciously recycled materials bit the idea made logical sense to him. If Sanji was correct that the factories burned the bodies - something Zoro had also theorized - there seemed no point to it. Then again, what was the point to anything?

The two still living people set about stripping the dead ones of useful materials, bones would be used to make small sharp object when needed, hair was a good way to mend, the meat was used as a fertilizer for the crops. Nothing was wasted, there was something Zoro could appreciate about that. 

They headed back inside, Zoro followed Sanji into the back where a small series of rooms made up his humble home. They were both pretty well covered in blood, Zoro more so than Sanji. 

"There's a shower through that door," Sanji said motioning to the bathroom a few feet away. Mechanically, Zoro walked in and turned on the water, shutting the door as he went. The water was not particularly warm but it was not freezing cold either. Most days in the city it was ice cold, something that was particularly disastrous during the writer, causing people to avoid bathing for long lengths of time. Diseased spread even more quickly during the winter. Zoro had a fairly good immune system, he didn't usually get sick, but what he did fall ill it was always very bad. There were four times he could remember in his life being sick and each time was nearly the death of- 

The blood stuck to his skin a bit, he had to scrub it off but it wasn't especially difficult. He rushed through the shower, shut it off, and wrapped himself in a towel. He dressed quickly, his pants were in fine shape but his shirt was pretty well soaked in blood. He debated putting it back on, but decided against it. So, he walked out shirtless. 

Sanji looked up as he walked back into the main room, holding the ruined shirt. He hummed, and went to take it from his hands, but stopped, his hands loosely holding the fabric. His eyes were trained on Zoro's chest, on the long jagged scar that made its home there. His right hand lightly touched the scar tissue, not bothering to ask permission. Zoro tilted his head, wonder what the hell he was doing. 

Sanji ran his fingers the length of the scar before saying anything. "Where did you get this?" he asked as his hand met the top of the former wound. 

"Street cleaners," he answered simply. He had been sick, laying in the street with the broken as he was unable to work. The street cleaners were coming through. It was normal procedure to pick up the bodies, bring them to a secure location and then double check them, but not every squad did this. The squad that tried to pick up Zoro did not. They slashed him open and picked him up for the cart. The blood gushed and he thought he was going to die, but then began an air raid in a nearby district. The street cleaners were pulled away from work to find shelter. Zoro lay there on a pile of bodies bleeding slowly to death. But he didn't die, he was still alive. He managed to drag himself out of the cart and halfway down the road the street cleaners had come from, even as bombs were being dropped and buildings obliterated. Somehow he found it in I'm to survive-

Sanji did not look satisfied his Zoro's answer, but Zoro didn't remember what question he had answered so that didn't matter much to him. Sanji did not take his hand away from the scar though, he just kept touching it. Zoro, not used to other human contact, was beginning to feel uncomfortable. 

"Maybe you set out to find this place," Sanji said, leaning further into Zoro's personal space. He had a very wide and genuine grin on his face. 

"Maybe," Zoro said, staring out the window at the open sky, trying half heartedly to distract himself from this strange individual. 

"Are you going to leave tomorrow?" Sanji's smile faulted and sputtered out at Zoro's aversion, and Zoro found himself missing its unfamiliar warmth. 

"Not if you don't want me to," he said slowly. 

"Then don't," the smile was creeping its way back, "the people here are terribly dull and the night always ends with me killing them. I don't have a very active social life; you'd be the most interesting thing in the world." He leaned in a tiny bit further, his eyes glittering. 

"Then I'll stay," Zoro decided. He nodded, turing away from the window to look at Sanji. Such an interesting person so far from where he had come. There had never been anyone like him before. He was new and with him Zoro could almost find himself feeling. Feeling what? It was something interesting, warm-

Sanji sighed as the moment was broken by another jolt. "Come on, bed time," he grabbed Zoro's hand, finally taking the ruined shirt, and bringing him into another room. It was a small bedroom with on medium sized bed. Sanji shrugged, "I only have one bed and it's better than sleeping on the floor. We'll both fit," he smiled, throwing the shirt into a bin. 

Zoro didn't care, he'd spent more than enough nights out in the street to appreciate a bed when it was available. 

Zoro laid down and settled himself for his usual three hours of sleep. The bed was probably softer than any Zoro had ever laid on, it was slightly disorienting to be comfortable. Outside of his sight, there was a rustle of clothes as Sanji changed and stepped into bed beside him. He could feel the blond staring at him, smiling. He was much closer than he should have been, there was room on his side, but Zoro didn't find himself caring much. He let Sanji lay closer than he should as he let his eyelids dip closed. Once he found sleep, the chip would wake him after his scheduled three hours, so he would have to make the best of it. Sanji running a thumb over his cheek probably helped to lull him into the darkness of sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear there was a TV episode or book where thoughts got interrupted to halt a train of thought, I just can't remember. Maybe I dreamed it up, I don't know. Oh well. 
> 
> Edit: Harrison Bergeron! That's the story! Thank you to the guest and to Sydney who recognize it :) I sort of remembered reading it in an 8th grade measure up book but it was all mixed up in my head because I read weird. 
> 
> Thanks


	11. Disjointed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weirdness

There was pain, of that much Sanji was sure. Always pain, creeping up under the skin and curling its way into the soul. Unless the kind soldier was there, then the pain felt more like sadness. That was a different kind of hurt. It is not to say that these were the only two emotions that were ever felt—there were others that mixed in—but these were the strongest. 

This place Sanji existed in was very confusing and nothing ever made much sense. But maybe that was the point. If the things were agony when they didn't make sense, just imagine if they did. It might be too much to take. Sometimes things just got to be too much, after all. Maybe it was just the brain's way of coping with trauma. There must be a lot of trauma if this place was the result. All the same, not knowing what was going on was a hideously scary existence. The mind was constantly reeling, trying to fit the pieces into some sort of semblance of order, to organize the events that bled together as the rain fell. The rain fell often and heavily, but it never made the grass grow. 

Things would always happen again and again and despite having already gone through them multiples of times, Sanji would react in exactly the same way. There was very little in the way of control. Sanji was probably most out of control when the water came. 

Sanji lived to repeat many things that had already happened and the events never seemed to have lost their initial emotion with time, if time even existed at all in a place like this. There was no way to determine the passage of time in any case. Sometimes it was daytime and in the blink of an eye it was night. Time seemed to skip around very often, just like the way that the environment shifted without any sort of reasoning. Despite how familiar it became, it was still very disorienting. 

This place where Sanji existed was mostly made of rubble, that's where Sanji spent the most time; in deviation, everything was destroyed. To what end the destruction was in done, it was hard to say. Remembering things was difficult. Sometimes things were known, often they were not. Existing in the rubble was sad and it was stressful, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world. There were worse times out there that made this pale in comparison. 

The only solid structures were the walls to keep this place sealed in, so that nothing could escape and infect the rest of the unknown with its blackness. Inside was crumbled. Flowers and pups and old shoes were always stumbling through the rubble. None of them ever had the time for Sanji. They had better things to do than stop by for a chat, they had to survive after all. Sanji understood their lack of attention and didn't try to talk with them much. Their gazes only ever held animosity. Sanji was not well liked, it was trained distaste. Societal. But that was fair enough, Sanji wasn't so happy with the creature in the murky reflective pools either, it went against years and years of reinforced thought but that's how things were now. Ugly times make for ugly people. 

Sanji would sometimes go looking for someone in the rubble, look for toy soldiers with warn down paint—familiar faces—but none of any importance were ever seen. Sanji would pick up scraps of paper in hopes of seeing the names. Sometimes there were familiar names, but none too important. Still, it was marginally sad to see them. 

Sometimes Sanji would be stopped by the soldiers with their lazy smiles. They didn't appreciate all the frowns Sanji had for them, they wanted smiles. Sanji resented them for it, but could understand their desire. After so long out in the storm Sanji would want to see smiles on pretty faces too. 

Sanji had always been considered aesthetically pleasing, it was a gift of genetics. The eyebrows where asymmetrical, but that didn't take much away from the pretty face that bore them. Perfect porcelain, corn silk hair, and crystal blue eyes, tall and thin. The other flowers had been jealous, but Sanji didn't care much for that sort of thing. There were much more interesting things to think about than physical appeal. The blond had always kept open ears and a closed mouth as the flowers discussed the how horrible all those weeds were while listening to all the stomping about. It all have Sanji a terrible, pounding headache. 

The soldiers liked the empty smiles and would hand over food, then there would be an aching feeling inside, it would be pain if it wasn't so dulled by the creeping numbness. It was distressing, but after the water, this was nothing. It still didn't feel good to receive the food unless it was from the kind soldier with the green hair, when he gave away food Sanji only felt at worst the sadness and at best gratitude. Sanji never ate the food—always one to carry an empty stomach—the food was alway set out for the wolves so that the pups could get big and strong. It was food they always gave, it was all Sanji would take. The paper was useless; it did nothing. Things could get other things, paper was nothing and there was so much paper. With food the pain wasn't so bad after seeing the puppies eat, it just became part of life. Sanji just kept moving forward, looking back was detrimental, but in this place it was difficult to say which way was forward and which way was back, so sometimes Sanji would accidentally look back. 

The worst thing to look back to was when Sanji was back in the rats' nest with all the flowers. When the zhaleikas were playing long sad songs into the empty air. It was a warning, the water was coming, a terrible thing. Everyone knew it. There was tension in the air so thick Sanji was afraid that any movement might be enough to to break it. Dread was commonplace when they weren't choking on all the smoke in the air. It was already hard to breathe. 

Then the water would start to rise, as they all knew it would. The first wave that came wasn't bad so, it had power but did little damage, only flowing up around the knees. The second wave was much worse, it was as horrible as they had been warned. It knocked Sanji about and choking away the oxygen. Swimming to the surface was impossible, fighting against the current was nearly impossible and the air above was poison. If one wanted to live, then one would have to wait for the water to subside and take the fullest of breaths while waiting for the next wave to come, and the next wave, and the next wave. On and on. It was sorely tempting to swim to the surface, to make it all stop, but Sanji wanted to live. Living was everything, without it there was nothing. 

The water was boiling hot with tears. It was understandable, it was only right to be angry in such conditions, against such individuals, but drowning hurt and Sanji had whispered words to the voices at night. Sanji had never been friends with those who went stomping around, they lacked elegance. It hardly seemed fair to receive such rubbish treatment but that was how it went anyway. Water had little care for windy words and the rain only aided it. 

When Sanji felt truly awful with all the heavy pain and stuck in a downpour, the way things were were now, the blond would go to the walls around this place and look for points of weakness. There were always spots that were crumbling away. It wasn't so hard to breach the wall. On the other side it felt nice, but it was seemingly impossible to break through completely. Every time Sanji broke through the brick, it was immediately sealed back up by the brick layer on the other side. It was incredibly frustrating, but even a little exposure to the outside world was enough to dull the pain a bit. Sanji often went to the wall and tore at it until the bricks were bloody and the soft hands were crying. It painted a sad picture that no one would hope to see. Anything to forget. 

The water filled the mouth and lungs, the chest felt tight, every thing hurt. The fifth wave was always the worst, multiple waves built up on top of each other and made for the longest time under water. Sanji screamed and screamed, but kicks moved in slow motion under the water and no one stopped to help. 

The tide never really recited away after that, it was ankle deep all around the city, sometimes it would well up again. Mostly that happened in Sanji's district. 

The time after the waves was filled with hours of chocking up water, throat burning; gaging on the unwelcome liquid. Swimming had never been the same after that, there was always fear and unease in those dark waters. Swimming with the kind soldier there might be okay though. Sanji wished he had been there in the aftermath but he hadn't landed yet. 

The ground was littered with wilting flowers before the waves but more so after, mostly they were pretty blue flowers with little yellow centers. They all looked sad, Sanji felt like a wilted flower sometime. 

Sanji blinked and the buildings were whole again. The gardeners had been through on one of their parades. They came day after day through the strong proud city, picking out all the weeds. It unnerved Sanji every time they did it. The blond would turn away for only a moment and a whole patch of weeds would be gone. They went around stamping their feet too much, they made a terrible racket. Sanji didn't trust them, it was better to listen in on what they were saying than to accept their words. 

Sanji liked to save the weeds when it was possible, digging them up and planting them somewhere else. That was dangerous business, but sometimes the voices arranged it, anything to bring things back to the way they should be. 

When Sanji was sleeping back the, there would be voices that whispered softly sounds like French silk. The language was understood well enough to be spoken fluently, Sanji would tell the voices about how the day had gone and the voices would listen intently, only to disappear by morning and reappear the next night. This only ever happened leading up to the waves, never after. Sanji felt betrayed by the voices for not helping while they had a chance. It was chaos leading up to that, there was no way the voices could be heard over all the racket. Sanji knew this, but it still hurt. 

The kitchen smelled warm and sweet, disaster was baking in the oven as everyone was called away. Not everyone, just everyone who could swing a stick at the toy soldiers. None of the pups or the old shoes could go, but Sanji knew mostly stick swingers and they were led away by the gardeners. The feeling wasn't sad so much as it was resigned. Sanji, not being one of them, was forced to stay behind to keep baking, but made sure to protest the action until the one with the long hat had a talk with the voices. It still felt lacking, but it was the best option. The man with the tall hat was dragged off with all the others to fight in their big storm not long after that. He wasn't happy about it. 

Disaster was slow to rise at first, but in the cold winter air years later it started its ascent. Sanji never got to bring it out of the oven because all the houses shook to bits, including the one with the kitchen. From then on it was sleeping in a rats' nest with the other flowers as the water crept forward to drown them. 

The rats' nest was not a fun place to be. Too many faces and not enough air. The ground felt like it would collapse onto them and the air outside whistled in threatening tones. It was constricting and Sanji wasn't meant for a place like this. Everyone here was weak and lifeless, Sanji needed the fire that had been with the men in the kitchens. 

The gardeners took pride in their little garden. They didn't care much for what the flowers had to say, flowers should never speak, after all an outspoken flower was a very rude flower. But still everyone loved the way they looked. A beautiful sight, swaying in the breeze. They had the flowers sing songs for them, but the songs made Sanji's tongue twist and throat ache. The other flowers sang well enough and Sanji had to pretend for the sake of looks. Sanji was glad when the gardeners were drown. The ones that were. 

Sanji had been fighting with the little boys again, they were stupid and rather on the mindless side. Their malleable minds were too well suited to the forces at work. They didn't appreciate Sanji's rebellious nature, so violent confrontation was their response. And that suited Sanji well enough, Sanji was good at violence. The boys were saved by time when Sanji rushed back to the restaurant. Men came later to complain with low angry voices. The man with the tall hat brushed them away. Later, he told Sanji to be more careful with such actions. Too many it there would be problems. Teeth grinding, Sanji accepted three words. 

Sanji's stomach ached constantly, it was a dull resonating pain, sometimes there would be blood. They both knew it wasn't a good sign, Sanji and the kind soldier. The soldier would make the pain into sadness with a simple touch and Sanji would drift to sleep against him. It was so cold and he was very warm. Sanji knew the hurt was because of the water, salt had crept in and rubbed the insides raw with a red touch. Trauma pushed it over the edge. 

The first time Sanji had seen the kind soldier, he had been standing with all the other toys. Sanji had approached him, intending to ask for food but was surprised when just handed it over without takin ting anything in return. The gratitude was immense and he was gifted with a real smile, a very tired one. 

Sanji always felt his eyes after that. His eyes made the pain worse when he wasn't there. They added shame. 

He was different than the other soldiers in personality and his look was different, but he spoke with the same foreign accent. His hair was very striking, the color of soft grass. Grass didn't grow here anymore, it had all been killed off by the weed killers. 

He spoke two languages, Sanji spoke three. They shared one in common and when they bumped into each other they would exchange words. He was worried, Sanji was numb. Sanji did not ease his worries, he words would be false. It was better to keep tightlipped about these sorts of things, talking about things made them real. Words pointed fingers and assigned blame, silence carried only unconfirmed suspicion. 

Many of the wilted flowers died in that time, some did not. Sanji did not, despite the soldier's worries but there were many rainy days. 

The gardeners were off attending a tea party, but the hosts thought they were rude. Some very important ones left early with permission. The birds wept. It made Sanji's blood boil. 

Despair was swelling like a balloon in Sanji's gut. More was needed for food and it was so cold. The kind soldier made an arrangement, Sanji repainted the faces of the toy soldiers. Sanji was on some level grateful, but some of them were mutual acquaintances and laughter behind their hands or worse. It was best to ignore that, just carry on. 

At the age of five and one, Sanji was a heavy weight and so was tossed out with the many other kids. This was not uncommon, times were hard so heavy weights were dropped. Sanji was not alone. The whole city was sad and gray. There was an angry buzzing of ideas in the air. 

Sanji was always a little different growing up. A little too rough and not soft enough. Different was not a good trait to have, fortunately Sanji didn't give a fuck. All the other kids fought over food, Sanji included. Those days were gray but not as dark as those to come. 

The man with the long hat appeared after an especially bad winter. Sanji was half frozen outside the warm restaurant, face pressed against the cold bricks and with an empty stomach. The blond had been there all night, having collapsed in but snow, now morning was coming and the stars were fading. 

The lights inside flicked on and a door opened, shedding light into the empty street. The man stood there for a moment, Sanji watched him, sure that he would just go back inside and that would be the end. Instead, he walked out into the cold and accepted the strange child without question. From then on Sanji was a dish washer. 

The cold was physically painful to breathe in. Everything was still, it had been for days. There had been blood. The kind soldier brought bandaids and words that only verified what was already known. Sanji didn't know how to feel. The proper response was either sadness or joy. At first it had been relief, but when the doctor gave the medicine—what little he had and none of it stopping the pain—the act was tinged with sadness. The kind soldier didn't know how to feel either. He stood there, running his hands through Sanji's hair as the pain continued to build. Sanji felt bad about that, he didn't have to do this thing. He had no obligation, but he stayed anyway. Sanji thought he was the most wonderful man in the world for that. He knew everything but he still stayed, maybe that was why he stayed. Sanji hoped not. 

Sanji didn't like the soldiers with the painted smiles at all. They were harsher than the rest. They were cruel for the sake of being cruel. Sanji wouldn't take it, there was too much anger. One of them almost got his head popped off for it, a few more may or may not have lost fingers. The kind soldier approved in a melancholy sort of way. He brought blankets, cigarettes, and food as thanks. 

When the agony twisted, they cut open Sanji's belly and let out all the bad blood until it was empty. It was cold and it hurt inside. 

It was alarming the transformation that could be made when entities were unhappy. So much anger could accomplish unexpected things and did just that. It was even more terrifying to watch faces transform like that. Familiar faces transformed into something foreign and hateful.

Painting faces was hard work, Sanji found. It was not as enjoyable as cooking but it filled the time. It was not so good when their eyes held recognition, then they laughed and did terrible things. Sanji continued to ignore it. 

Sanji and the kind soldier were the same age, he had lived in a place across the sea. He was not happy where he was now, it made his brain feel sick and his heart beat irregularly. Before, when things were bad, he knew what he was doing, now things were silly and people had gone all daffy. He didn't want to be in this place anymore, but his shoes were glued to the floor when he wanted to run. He wanted to bring Sanji too, it would be better somewhere else. Unfortunately, he was tied up with all the other toy soldiers. 

Sanji couldn't go around the soldier factory so much after first meeting the kind soldier. The other toys took notice of them and painted big smiles. They thought it was funny. Maybe it was because he had the different look than them but carrier in better. They were cruel. 

The man with the long hat hated dog fights, he had seen a particularly bad dog fight when he was young and never wanted to see something like that again. He had been in the ground while the dogs fought. The wet earth took his leg away. He had swung his stick at the others, but the dog they bet on still lost and the money was owed. So many pieces of paper. 

Sanji was walking back to the living quarters, hands covered in paint. A shadow walked the sidewalk going the other way. The attack was sudden, Sanji didn't see it coming until it was too late. The shadow hands dug into the soft underbelly and made bloody flowers under the skin. Sanji stumbled to the side and fell against the ground, shaking. The shadow started kicking, reached words pouring over Sanji. Snow was falling, it was too cold for rain. 

They talked about running away sometimes. The kind soldier was always saying how it wasn't so bad back where he came from. Sure, they would hate Sanji's strange wordings, but at least the cities wouldn't be so broken. They talked about it a lot. 

It was very cold, blankets didn't do much for help. The kind soldier did a little. He was so warm. Sanji started talking, words dripping with the rain water trapped in the blond's rib cage. Inside was still a turbulent ocean, but Sanji wanted him to see it. When he saw he frowned and kissed Sanji's forehead. He whispered soft words to the cold air as streamers fell from the sky. Heart in throat, Sanji let the moment linger, wishing it would last longer. The day had not been good, Sanji had a mouth full of blood, a roiling stomach and rattled teeth. Nice moments like this were savored, they were few and far between. 

The man with the tall hat was beaten with sticks by the other toy soldiers when he was found to be putting water in the sprinklers instead of weed killer. He was too set in his ways. This was very sad, but Sanji was glad that he didn't join with those terrible gardeners. 

The kind soldier came late as Sanji lay bleeding. He almost didn't stop, it was so hard to see, but he did. That was when he grabbed for the doctor. 

Sanji could breath nothing into life, it all died and crumbled away like the rest of this place. All the hurt memories. Sanji felt that this was only part of the story and if it was part of a story then it must be the low part. From there it could only go up. That was the only reassurance in a place like this. Even in this place of hurt, there was out there another self who was happy. And Sanji would gladly suffer for that cause.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was my pathetic attempt at symbolism and strangeness. I had to wade around a lot of words and no dialogue either. I like dialogue. So, anyway it's a little shorter than usual. I wrote it this way because the subject it's written on is one I find incredibly interesting, but I feel like I have no real way to encompass the emotion or events of such a story and thus have no business writing it. Plus, it's probably a little controversial and very messed up.
> 
> I don't know if you can tell what's going on or not but I'd love to hear what you think happened. 
> 
> Also, I'm in school now so updates will be less seldom. 
> 
> Thanks.


	12. Merman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mermaids

It was early July 2010 and the Gulf coast was a mess of oil and chemicals. On April 20, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig had suffered a rig blowout, killing eleven workers and releasing millions of barrels worth of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The rig was operated under Transocean, contracted under BP (British Petroleum).

Sanji, a humble citizen on the coast of Louisiana, was stuck inside nursing the horrible blisters he'd recently developed that definitely had nothing to do with the fact that a chemical band over in Europe was being dumped into the ocean for the sake of aesthetics. That was a ridiculous notion, and anyone who thought it was defiantly an idiot.

Well, they weren't being dumped so much as sprayed by airplane. Still, not so good. Sanji had been steering clear of the water for the most part, but recently he'd been down helping with cleaning up the tarballs (large black chunks of petroleum) from the beaches and he'd broken out. He'd heard of similar occurrences happening with other individuals, but no real effort seemed to be underway to protect the people form this health hazard. No one was given any sort of safety gear or anything, they just went about in their normal clothes. It was a little weird, but not really when one considered that BP wouldn't want the bad publicity of people going around in hazmat suits and cleaning things up.

The chemical, a dispersant named corexit, didn't even seem to be doing that great of a job. Well, it was doing exactly was BP wanted it to do, it brought the oil down from the surface out of sight, which looked good from a media stand point but that was also bringing it down to the marine life. The planes would fly out at night spraying and in the morning the oil would be below the surface. The chemical was even more toxic when mixed with the oil, leading to heightened health risks.

The substance was banned over in Europe for being detrimental to human health, in particular respiratory issues, a fact which BP must have been aware of. Although, as a company wanting to make the easiest choice for itself, maybe the lack of respect for human health can be expected, but somewhere in the United States congressional system, they failed to have corexit banned in the first place, so BP couldn't be totally to blame.

Regardless of how shitty the situation was, Sanji was suffering the consequences of these collective actions very unhappily, as one would expect. It was late and Sanji would have loved to go for a walk out on the beach at the moment, but it was covered in tarballs and sectioned off by the coast guard at the moment. So, he stayed where he was, stuck inside twitching irritably until he decided 'fuck my health, I'm going to the docks' and marched out the door. It really wasn't a far walk down to the docks and no one was really out because the water was so shitty.

When he reached the end of the dock Sanji took a seat, dangling his feet over the side, kicking aimlessly as he stared at the dark waters. There were no boats out at the moment. At night they all went away so the chemicals could be sprayed. During the day some of the fishing ships got paid to go out and sit there, not doing anything. Boats really weren't allowed out very far yet and could be arrested for going out there thanks to the coast guards cozy relationship with BP.

This whole situation sucked really hard. Sure, he understood that it was a complex situation given that people needed oil and stuff there just seemed to be a lot of bullshit involved. Sanji gave his right leg an extra angry kick and accidentally sent his flip flop flying into the water in a graceful ark.

"God dammit!" he exclaimed. Now he was going to have to walk back stepping in whatever shit was on the sidewalk. Who knows what was out there.

He spent a few seconds angrily staring at the light blue flip flop as it drifted away from him. He let out an angry huff as he started to get up, too annoyed to stare out at the water anymore. Turning away, he started on his way back home, hoping he wouldn't step in any glass or anything.

"Hey, a little help here!" a voice called from somewhere behind him.

Confused and wondering if he was hallucinating due to fumes from the water, Sanji turned to see a man swimming just off the front of the dock, holding the lost flip flop over his head like a flag.

Sanji rushed back to get a better look, although it was too dark to see much. "Dude, what the fuck are you doing swimming in that shit!" Sanji asked horrified.

The man coughed roughly, "Fucking dying, can you help a guy out? I'll give you this thing." He lifted the flip flop like it was an offering worth something.

"That's mine, you should give it to me regardless of if I help you or not," Sanji couldn't help but pointing out.

"Fuck you, now it's my hostage," the man spat back, clutching the flip flop tighter.

"Whatever, just swim around to the boat ramp, it's over on this side," Sanji motioned to the right and heard splashing as the man ducked underwater, coming up again as he neared the loading area. Sanji walked down to see if he needed any help and to get his flip flop back because he'd be damned if he let this guy jack his flip flop.

Under the closer light, Sanji could see the guy a little better now; he seemed to be Asian in decent with a wet mop of light green hair. Huh, what a little punk. "It's probably shallow enough that you can stand," Sanji said as the man neared him. Sure, it was probably a little slippery and gross under the toes, but it would make things easier in the long run.

"Yeah, about that," the guy breathed hesitantly but with a note of humor in his voice. There was a splash and a fish tail reared its... head... tail. Whatever, there was a massive fish tail and that was all that mattered. For a second Sanji though a giant fish had tried to jump out of the water and onto the swimmer, but when the man crawled farther up the boat ramp he saw that it was attached to his body like a mermaid.

"What?" Sanji blinked at him in disbelief.

"Yeah, I didn't say anything because I thought you'd probably ditch me or something, but yeah I'm what you might call a merman. The name's Zoro," Zoro grinned, amused at Sanji's stunned face.

Sanji's eyes narrowed, "Okay, bullshit, there no way you are a mermaid. Totally a costume and I'm not falling for it."

"Okay, first of all, it's polite to introduce yourself when someone give you their name. Second, merman and third it's totally true, feel it if you don't believe me, I've got working gills too." He cocked his head to the side to show off the slits in the side of his neck.

Sanji hesitantly edged forward, he didn't touch him, but he watched the way he moved. It really looked real. Like really really real. Like more real than the movies real, not that Sanji watched many movies about mermaids. Zoro looked human from the waist up, excluding the gills. Below the waist his tail resembled that of a shark more than a fish. It looked sleek and gray, the ends of his find tipped with black and the underbelly a soft looking white. In addition to his whale like caudal fins, whale like meaning forward facing, in shape they looked thinner and more shark like; he had two pelvic fins at his hips, thankfully lacking the claspers a shark would have, shark sex was terrifying; and two slightly smaller and awkwardly named anal fins just below them. He looked very sleek.

"Okay, let's say you are a mermaid– Sorry, merman," Sanji corrected himself, "That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever," Sanji complained at the lack of logic.

"Well, it's true," the merman shrugged.

"Well, I don't believe you. If mermaids exist, then why has no one ever caught one?"

"There aren't many of us and we keep to ourselves. Also, merpeople have each other's backs," Zoro snorted.

"How do you speak English?" Of all the languages a mermaid could have spoken, English seemed improbable. Sanji imagined mermaid talk was more like dolphin talk or whale talk or shrieking underwater, not actual talking as humans know it.

"I was raised speaking English," the merman informed him like it was no big deal as he dragged himself more completely onto the land. He looked like he'd swam though a lump of black goo, it was clinging to his hair and tail, and staining his skin.

"You can't speak in English underwater." Sanji would know after spending much time as a kid making conversation and screaming underwater, it was very hard to understand.

"Sure I can, I grew up doing it after all."

"Who the fuck taught you English then?" It's not like they could come up with it all on their own.

"Look, I'm not going give you all the mer-secrets until you give me a show of faith or something," Zoro huffed.

"What-"

"Are we going to do this all night? This shit is starting to burn my skin even more." Zoro tried to wipe some of the black goo from his gills, although it probably wasn't actually the source of the burning.

"What, you want me to get you out of here, like on land?" He already looked pretty funny sitting half out if he water.

"Yeah, that'd be great."

"Can you survive without water?"

"I am now aren't I?"

"Yeah, but-"

"I have a complex anatomy, deal with it."

"What am I supposed to do, carry you? That wouldn't look weird at all. Me carrying a merman down the road in the dead of night," Sanji could only imagine what seeing something like that would do to a person.

"Take me to your house in a cart or something," Zoro suggested, "I don't know, I don't want to sit here all night!"

"Why the hell would I bring you home? You're putting a lot of faith in the first person you've met."

"I have mystical merman powers," Zoro rolled his eyes, although Sanji wasn't really sure if he was kidding or not.

"You don't even know my name!" the blond argued.

"Fine, what's your name?"

"It's Sanji."

"Yeah, that's a very pretty name, now get me out of here," Zoro said sarcastically.

"Why would I even want to bring you home?"

"I'm a merman, how could you not?" It's a once in a lifetime opportunity."

"Fuck. Fine, I'll run home and get my car. Give me my flip flop."

Zoro handed it over and with one last look back to make sure he hadn't totally lost his mind, Sanji ran home, grabbing a ton of towels, soap,  
and his car keys.

Sanji was half surprised to see Zoro still sitting there when he drove back.

"I'm back, seaweed head," Sanji said as he approached. He had a towel in his hands although Zoro looked at least partially dry now. He tossed the merman the towel anyway.

"I can see that," Zoro glared at him, wiping some of the black substance off with the towel. He did an okay job cleaning himself off, but when he threw the towel back Sanji scrubbed him down a little more. Cleaning him off, Sanji felt like he was in one of those clean up the beach commercials. He really didn't want to get tar all over his vehicle though.

"Ready?" Sanji asked, grabbing his arms and preparing to drag him up to the car.

"Go for it."

Dragging him wasn't so hard and Sanji was glad his car wasn't higher up off the ground so Zoro could clamber in pretty much on his own.

"Man, it's been forever since I've been in a car," the merman said, looking around the vehicle.

"When the hell have you been in a car before?" Sanji wondered.

"None of your business," Zoro stuck his tongue out.

"Hey, I'm trying to help you here."

"Sure, but I'm still not prepared to give you all my secrets."

Sanji rolled his eyes and made the short drive to his home, parking in the garage. He didn't have an especially large house, but it was a good size for him, he didn't spend all that much time there anyway. As long as he had a large kitchen he was good.

He got out of the car and opened up the door to his laundry room. He had a little dog shower thing in there that he usually used to rinse off his feet or Luffy. Usually Luffy.

He then went back to the car and opened the back doors, grabbing Zoro, carefully lowering him out. Once he had him out, he dragged him into the little dog shower.

He looked rather strange sitting in there and he didn't look too happy. All the same, Sanji grabbed the nozzle and sprayed it into his face.

Zoro sputtered and batter the hose away. "If you're trying to drown me, it's not going to work."

"Still worth a shot," Sanji sighed, handing over the hose.

Mutteting darkly, Zoro hosed himself down. His gills moved strangely as the water moved over them. It was very strange and a little transfixing. Feeling awakened, Sanji left him to wash himself off and went to cook some sort of snack when he realized something.

"Oi, what do merpeople eat?" Sanji asked. He didn't want to give him something that would upset his stomach after all.

"Raw fish, whatever kind you have," Zoro said flashing a toothy grin. His teeth were much more pointed than a human's, it was a little creepy honestly.

"Okay, well are you hungry right now?" Sanji asked.

"Nah, my stomach hurts pretty bad right now because I ate some fish off the coast," he grimaced thinking about the fish who had been swimming through the oil. It probably hadn't been the best idea to eat them but he had been hungry, dammit.

"Do you want anything for that tummy ache?" Sanji asked only half kidding.

"No, I'm fine."

"Okay, well I think I actually have some fish in the freezer if you get hungry."

"Awesome, I won't starve."

"I'd never let you starve."

"Wow, we just met, no need to start with the big promises just yet."

"That wasn't a big promise, it was me not being a huge dick. Helping people not starve is a big deal to me."

"Why, do you have some sort of traumatic past wherein you were starved by someone?"

"As a matter of fact-"

"No."

"But-"

"Shut up, we just met. I don't care about your traumatic past yet. Tell me when I care."

"God, why did I save you?" Sanji wondered, "I really should have let you die out there."

"You still have that chance," Zoro reminded him.

"Alright fine, you're too interesting to murder right now, being a merman and all, but as soon as I lose interest you're deaf. Fuck, I mean dead."

"Holy fuck, don't stab my ear drums out!"

"Shut up, I didn't mean to say that."

"I think you did, just subconsciously."

"Thank you, doctor Freud."

"Doctor who?"

"No, not Doctor Who, doctor Freud. Those are two very different people."

"They can't be too special because I don't know either of them."

"That's because you grew up under the ocean."

"And somehow I turned out just fine."

"But you said you'd been in a car before too."

"I have been in a car before, when I was like six or something."

"Did someone catch you or something?"

"No, we have this thing were kids go out to live as humans for a year when they're little and when they're a teenager. That way they can decide if they want to live as a human or a merperson."

"I have so many questions."

"Fuck. I mean, great."

"Well, first of all, how the hell do you live as a human for a year if you have a tail like that," Sanji gestured to Zoro's tail.

"Just a little mermaid magic," Zoro shrugged like it was nothing.

"Bullshit."

"No, I swear. The priestess makes up this pill and when you swallow it you become human until you take another pill."

"I'm sure the science of that is really solid."

"Fuck you, it probably is."

"Okay, let's say you can become human. Who is it that houses all these mermaid kids?"

"All the ex-merpeople, that way no one outside the society can know."

"And no one's ever snitched on you guys?"

"Most people just think they're crazy if they say anything."

"Yeah, but still."

"Also, a mermaid can't break a promise."

"Okay? What if you're physically incapable of breaking a promise."

"Don't make the promise."

By this time Zoro was clean enough to accept the towel Sanji offered him.

"So I guess you're just going to drag yourself across my floor then?" Sanji wondered.

"Yeah, I hope you keep clean floors."

"Yeah, but maybe I should put a big cloth on your stomach to keep it cleaner."

"I will not lower myself to the status of floor cleaner."

"Alright, fine." Sanji said, walking from the room, followed my Zoro as he crawled army style across the carpet. It was slightly creepy but nothing Sanji couldn't handle.

Sighing, he took a seat on the cough as Zoro leaned against another chair on the floor.

"So, what the hell am I supposed to do with you?" Sanji wondered.

"Well, I'm not going back into the gross water, so either dump me in the street or drive me out to the middle of the ocean."

"Or I could inform some sort of scientist and make a ton of money for selling you to science."

"Yeah, don't do that."

"I guess you can stay here for a while, until they let us drive out into the ocean again. It might be a while though."

"Great, what the fuck am I going to do in the mean time?"

"I don't know, what do you usually do?"

"I like to go fight sharks."

"Fuck, that's bad ass."

"What?"

"Nothing, how the fuck do you fight sharks?"

"I use swords and fists."

"Um, I guess I have some work out equipment. My collection isn't especially extensive though. You can watch tv too, I'll show you how to use Netflix and stuff.

"Good. Human technology is convenient," he sighed happily.

"So are you like nocturnal or what?" Sanji asked, not sure how he wanted do the whole sleep thing.

"I usually just sleep when I feel like it but usually most of us are up at night, yeah."

"Um, I have a guest room you can stay in. I don't know how you usually sleep or whatever."

"In caves, just floating and stuff. Pretty normal."

"Yeah, well it's the second door on the right, my room is at the end of the hall.

"Got it."

"I think I'm just going to go to bed now, hopefully when I wake up I'll realize that this has all just been a dream."

"It's not a dream."

"I'm still holding out hope. Goodnight, weird fish man."

"Night, weird human man."

Sanji laid back in his bed staring up at the ceiling numbly. He had a merman in his house. I real merman. He was definitely losing his mind. He decided that tomorrow after work he would bring in someone else to take a look at him, just to verify his insanity.

XxxX

Sanji woke up at his usual time, rolling out of bed he quickly prepared himself for the day. He delayed a bit before exiting his room, waiting to put his sanity to the test.

He stepped out into the hall and crept toward his guest room, slowly opening the door. There was no one inside, the room was undisturbed.

Sanji's heart thumped in his chest and he took a deep breath. Just because there was no one in this room didn't mean that Zoro hadn't ever existed, it was possible he was somewhere else in the house.

Walking carefully away from the room, Sanji made his way toward the kitchen, eyes peeled for anything suspicious. He didn't see anything until he got into the living room where he saw a sleeping merman sprawled over his couch, face down so said could see the short up curve of his dorsal fin.

Sanji had a mixed reaction to seeing him. Either this proved he was crazy or he wasn't. Either way, Sanji made his way toward the fridge to see if he had any sorts of raw fish to feed the half human. As it turned out, he had a few tins of tuna, some salmon strips, and some left over sushi. Sanji figured that would probably do until he could go out to buy something better. Lately the fish market hadn't been very active though.

As he was about to leave, Sanji wrote up a note to leave Zoro to tell him where the food was and to give him his phone number if he needed anything. Then he wondered if Zoro could actually read. Sure he could speak in English but it seemed a bit far fetched the though that he could read and write too.

Sanji made his way over to the couch and nudged Zoro awake. The merman shot up with a startled sound. "Fuck, what?" He asked when he realized there was no threat to his person.

"Can you read?" Sanji asked, holding up his note.

"Yeah, I can read, how dumb do you think I am?"

"Pretty dumb. This is instructions for food and other stuff. Everything is on the bottom shelf so you can reach it," Sanji said shoving the note to Zoro's chest. "I'm leaving now, don't destroy my house."

"No promises," Zoro yawned.

So, he was still seeing mermaids. Good to know.

Work was a blur of food and shouting. Zeff was being more of an ass than usual, so Sanji was rather put out as he was leaving for the day. He hadn't gotten any phone calls from Zoro which sounded good, but it could also be disastrous.

On his way home he stopped by the beach where he knew Luffy was helping out with the clean up. He'd texted the idiot earlier that day to set up a meeting in the parking lot, but Luffy was apparently late. That wasn't entirely unexpected from him though. Sanji sighed, wondering what Zoro was doing if he did exist. He seemed like a weird guy, even for a merman.

Sanji's phone vibrated, it was a text from Luffy.

Luffy 9:00 PM

I'm at your house. The dodos locked.

Sanji 9:00 PM

I'm assuming you meant the door is locked and that's because I'm not home. I told you to meet me.

Luffy 9:01 PM

So can I go in?

Sanji 9:01 PM

No, hang on. I'll be there in like five minutes.

Five minutes later Sanji was in front of his house where Luffy had his face pressed to the window. He looked up at Sanji's approach.

"I think there's something moving in there," the dark haired boy hissed.

"Yeah, that's why I wanted you to come over. I need to know I'm not crazy," Sanji said, hastily unlocking he door and entering his home. He could hear that he TV was on and there was a shuffling sound coming from the living room. Walking farther inside, Sanji saw Zoro crawling across the floor toward them.

"Woah!" Luffy exclaimed, gawking at the half human before him.

"Oh, I guess I really haven't lost my mind then," Sanji observed.

"You thought I was a figment of your imagination?"

"Possibly."

"Fair enough, you do seem pretty insane, but I'd be willing to bet you lack the imagination for this."

"Asshole."

"Landlubber."

 "Wow, that's about the lamest pirate insult you could have used, you salty sea dog."

"Whatever, my mer-insults are just too hot for you to handle."

Sanji cringed, "I don't think putting the prefix mer in front of a word really makes it a cultural thing. Your insults are just lame."

"Where did you come from??" Luffy asked having finally recovered from his shock.

"He's a merman, Luffy, where do you think he came from?"

"What's mermaid world like?"

"Less noisy than up here and there are way less machines."

Luffy stayed for dinner and a while after, continuing to ask Zoro many many questions. Sanji spent the time mostly ignoring them to get dinner ready. It was late when he finally left. Sanji collapsed onto the couch as Zoro stared at him across the room.

"Stop that, it's creepy."

"Do you have any questions for me? That kid asked a lot, I want to get them all out of the way."

Sanji shrugged, "Hm, well, do mermaids wear seashells to to cover themselves like Ariel?"

"Who?"

"It's a little kid movie, I'll I've to show you sometime." Sanji said although he realized saying that made it sound like he expected Zoro to be staying for a while. "She wore seashells over her boobs... Or maybe she had some sort of weird fabric that looked like seashells, I don't know. Anyway, do they cover their girly bits?"

"No, what's the point of clothes underwater? It's just a hassle."

"I have to visit this place."

"Why? Are boobs a big deal here? I don't really get it."

"You must be desensitized or gay, they are a huge deal here."

"They're like weird fleshy lumps, it's kind of gross."

"Dude, super gay."

"Whatever, at least I don't have girly hair."

"There's nothing girly about my hair!"

"Sure there's not. Next question."

Sanji glared at him, "So, like how do you reproduce? I think that's the question on everyone's mind." Everyone being him but he felt like less of a creep if he was in a group.

"The same way Dolphins reproduce, you dumb fuck, how the hell do you think."

"Sorry, am I supposed to know how Dolphins reproduce?"

"Do you have any idea how sexually aggressive Dolphins are, you literally have to fight them off."

"I still don't know how it works."

"Then take a good look," he ajar gesturing down to himself.

"I'm afraid to look down."

"I'm not going to flash you! Just look." He pointed to the thin slit on his lower belly. "I've got a slit where I keep my genitalia right here, it's really not that complicated."

"You don't have to make me feel dumb about it."

"Well maybe you should feel dumb. Whatever. I guess the main thing is that now you know you can live out your fantasy of having sex with a merman."

"I've only fantasized about having sex with mermaids, also dear god was that a proposition?"

"No, it was not. I would never lower myself to having relations with a gross human."

"Whatever. So ,I guess you're just going to bum around my house then, at least until I can throw you back into the ocean."

"Yep."

"Well, I only work a half day tomorrow, so I'll get home around one."

"Ugh, I don't want to see your face."

"I have a beautiful face so you should feel blessed."

XxxX

Sanji got home the next day with a load of fish and groceries for Zoro who he found sleeping in the middle of the floor. He woke up when Sanji sat down on the couch, opening a DVD case.

"What are you doing?" He asked drowsily.

"I'm going to show you the little mermaid," Sanji grinned, tossing a pillow at his head.

Zoro was snickering at the movie all the way though.

"Alright, give me the rundown, what was wrong with it?"

"Well, first of all, this chick is crazy for falling in love with this guy for only his looks. She seems kind of blind and stupid to me."

"It's supposed to be romantic, although I confess I agree a little. It was a product of a more sexist time where it was okay to make a movie about a scantily clad sixteen year old who falls in love with someone based on looks and has to seduce with only her body."

"It isn't a very good message to all the women out there, is it?"

"No, it's not."

"And what's with all the singing?"

"It's a Disney thing, you didn't like it?"

"Did you?"

"That movie is like my childhood, I know all the songs by heart. I mean, I used to."

"Sure. I bet you were one of the kids who got called gay a lot."

"There were many accusations of that nature, but it's a little hard to talk with a foot shoved in your face."

"Well, at least you didn't just take it laying down." Zoro rolled his eyes.

"Nah, I'm a fighter."

"Get me a pair of legs and I'd love to kick your ass."

"What, you can't fight me with that tail of yours?"

"This limits my ability a little, don't you think?"

"I suppose so."

XxxX

Zoro lazes about for a week.

XxxX

"Hey, I think we can get you out to open water," Sanji said.

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, we'll have to go for a bit of a drive but we can go out to open water.

"When are we leaving?"

"As soon as tomorrow if you want."

"Tomorrow then," Zoro nodded.

Sanji was a little disappointed that Zoro really didn't want to stay but he probably had friends and stuff to get back to so he told himself that this was a good thing. What did he need a lazy merman for anyway?

XxxX

Sanji made the drive with Luffy by moonlight. It was probably best to do the release bit of catch and release out of any eyes.

The water was clear in the place Sanji had picked. They managed to find a nice empty beach and dragged Zoro out onto the sand. At the shore line he turned to them.

"I guess this is goodbye then," he said, lacking enthusiasm.

"Don't go, Zoro!" Luffy pouted.

Zoro just looked at him for a long moment. "This won't be the last time you see me," he said confidently.

"Is that so?" Sanji asked.

Zoro met his eyes. "It is." He turned and was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly, I hate mermaid stories. They always start off with potential but end up sucking :/ maybe it's just me, I don't know. This story is really just an excuse for me to ramble on about nonsense and environmental science. Also, to get out some mermaid frustration. I wrote it like two years ago.
> 
> I've never been to Louisiana so sorry if it's not quite right. Geez, I love anything that's morally very gray. Although this really isn't that gray, the oil rigs out there were probably technically commercial failures given that they weren't bringing up their intended amounts. They were drilling out there because they would get subsidized. Ah, fuck it whatever.
> 
> I had to look up some weird stuff for this. Also, turns out that mermaid biology really isn't that complicated if you look at it form more a mammal perspective. Or a shark perspective, although that's a little more complicated and violent. Really it wouldn't even be that complicated as fish either. Whatever, I'm a biology nerd.
> 
> Also, have you ever seen a documentary where all the ladies are topless and just going about their daily lives and realized how weird it is that people make a big deal about that sort of thing. Seriously, it's weird. Or maybe it's just me.
> 
> Thanks.

**Author's Note:**

> No idea where this came from but it was both serious and silly so I thought it would be a good start. 
> 
> Tumblr: opens-up-4-nobody
> 
> Thanks.


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